


Ties of Red, Promises of Gold: Book I

by kolachess



Category: Musa Baek Dongsu | Warrior Baek Dong Soo
Genre: Alternate Universe, Amnesia, Childhood fluff, Friendship, Friendship love, Historical, M/M, Royalty, Slash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-10-14
Updated: 2013-03-29
Packaged: 2017-11-16 07:35:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 12
Words: 56,649
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/537057
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kolachess/pseuds/kolachess
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Sa Mo was wary about the new boy. There was something—perhaps not about the boy, but that the boy brought with him—that the butcher didn't like."</p><p>A crown prince with no memory, a butcher's nephew with no roots, the red strings of Fate that tie them and the choices they make and keep. In some other universe, Baek Dong Soo was a warrior who lost all he loved and watched as his best friend died by his own hands. Yeo Woon was an assassin who lived a life chained by Fate and died by Her command. </p><p>Here, however, they are still simply children.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [The One](https://archiveofourown.org/external_works/19253) by hongmaingaotuyet. 



> This fic was inspired by hongmaingaotuyet's fanvid of Dong Soo x Yeo Woon called "The One" which can be found in the end notes. It is a wonderfully made fanvid, and she has given me permission to write a story off of it! 
> 
> *HOWEVER, I have to say that while this story started off as something based on the video, it quickly spiraled into something of much greater detail and depth, to the point where it's now a story of it's own. Unfortunately, because of how detailed it is, I have not been able to complete this story, not for the full length of the video, that is. I have finished an arc, so the story doesn't end abruptly. Hopefully, I'll be able to get the rest in eventually. But alas, school is a fiend. 
> 
> This story is an AU focusing on Dong Soo and Yeo Woon's childhood. It's mostly friendship and some puppy love, so sorry if you were hoping for some adult smexy-time. (The original plan was to eventually write that far!)
> 
> Anyways, thanks to Tameaut for beta-ing this chapter! She was wonderful in pointing out the historic flaws, although there might still be some because I changed things around. That'd be my fault. 
> 
> Now that you know what to expect (that this story doesn't actually span the length of the video and that they are children), here it is if you still want to continue!
> 
> DISCLAIMER: I do not own 'Warrior Baek Dong Soo' in any way. All the characters belong to the copyright-holders. No profit is made, just fun.

_Breathe, his mind told him. Breathe and run. Don't look back. Don't look down. Keep moving. He could hear the shouts piercing through the wind from behind him. He knew that if he looked back now, he would see his assailants, clad in black, chasing him like mountain lions bounding after their prey._

_An arrow—or was it a dart?—whistled through the air and embedded itself in a tree trunk to his left. He didn't look. Ahead of him was an endless sea of trees, and he just prayed it wouldn't end. The woods at least provided a sense of security for him. Left. Right. Jump. Left again. His hyung-nim always praised his swiftness and sure-footedness. Thinking of his hyung-nim sent a pang through his heart. Will he see him again?_

_Thwank!_

_That one was way too close to his head for comfort. Adrenalin quickly pulled his thoughts back to the old forest in front of him. Of course he'll survive this—he was the Crown Prince of Joseon!_

_The voices seemed to be receding now; noises washed away like sand being drowned by the rising tide. He didn't stop though. It was broad daylight, which meant that there was no cover of darkness ensuring his safety. Even if the sounds stopped, he was sure the fact that he was a visible moving target wouldn't. Well, at least they couldn't shoot arrows from that far away—not with the maze-like trees hindering any arrow paths._

_Suddenly, the curtain of trees gave way to a clearing of light. He stopped. At least, in his mind he did. His legs, however, pumped with adrenalin for the past half hour, didn't take heed of his mental command until he found himself nearly sliding off the edge of a cliff. He slid onto his bottom and found his legs dangling dangerously off the side of the rocky edge. His breaths came in deep and fast; his heart still thumped wildly as he tried to recollect himself from his near-death experience—the second one of the day._

_No. He had not outrun his pursuers yet. He quickly scrambled up away from the rocks and hissed in pain from the long ugly gash now on his leg._

_"There he is! Surround him!"_

_His head shot up at the sound of the command. He found twelve pairs of cold ruthless eyes staring down at him—eyes that were trained on him so that they could, at a single given command, let their owners unleash the arrows that would claim his life._

_Well, damn._

_He glanced to his side over the edge of the cliff and stood unsteadily on his uninjured leg to face it. When he looked behind him again, it was into the eye of an oncoming arrow. He smiled. And jumped._

_He wasn't sure if he jumped before the arrow hit him or after, but he had decided in that split second that if he were to die, there was no way it would be on the ground in front of those bastards. As he felt the wind whip his hair around him and watched as the sun moved away from him, he thought of his father and brother._

_'Abeonim...hyung-nim...'_

_Sorrow filled his heart. He couldn't remember the last thing he said to either of them. Was it something he would regret?_

_He didn't have much time to linger on those thoughts, because the next thing he knew, the water had ensconced him and his entire being burned._

_He was the Crown Prince of Joseon._

 

* * *

Sa Mo was certain he was too old for this. There was no way, _no way_ , he was youthful enough to entertain a group of nine to fifteen year old children in a game of hide and seek.

"Please? Ajusshi!" A little girl of eight was currently pulling, with both her hands and all her might, on his arm. Sa Mo was determined not to budge from his comfortable position on the deck. "Woon-oppa said you were really good at hide and seek! He can't play but he said you would!"

Sa Mo huffed. "Did he now? The little brat," he muttered to himself. He made a mental note to hunt down the little runt and send him to muck out the pig stables or some other nasty job later. Of course, his subconscious conveniently forgot to remind him that Woon was most likely doing this in retaliation for Sa Mo sending him to the stables the _last_ time.

Suddenly, the tugging stopped—only to be replaced by the ominous sound of sniffles. And without fail, came the full-forced wailing. "A-Ajush-shiii!" the little girl started crying; big fat tears started rolling down her face.

Sa Mo cringed and scratched his head nervously. "Hai...ahhhh! There's no need to cry!" He gave a nervous chuckle and started patting the child's back. "Ajusshi is just really busy right now—"

"Liar! Woon-oppa s-said that if y-you s-said you were b-busy, then that means you don't wanna p-play with u-uusss! Waaah!" The little girl started crying even louder. The way her little fists rubbed furiously at her eyes did nothing to abate the onslaught of tears.

Sa Mo heaved a weary sigh and stared at the girl for a few seconds out of the corner of his eye. After a few moments, he made a small 'tch!' noise and gave in. "Alright, alright! Ajusshi will play with you guys now, is that ok?" He crouched down and turned to face the girl at eye level, silently praying with his eyes and an uncertain smile that this would do the trick.

It certainly did. Instantly, the crying stopped. The face of a tormented eight-year-old suddenly morphed into one of utter excitement. "Yay! Ajusshi quickly—this way! All the other kids are going!" She started tugging on his hand once again, excitement enthusing her actions.

Sa Mo grumpily complied, wincing as he made the slow trek over to the bunch of squealing children. He looked around the village and across the grass rooftops. "Aigoo...where _did_ that child go off to?

 

* * *

 There was a long and narrow path outside the cozy village that went up and around the hills. It wasn't made so much as it was worn, treaded with such frequency by the women on days of laundry going down to the riverside to rid themselves of the week's or month's filth. On the warmer summer days, it was also used by the smaller children, seeking relief from the summer heat by jumping head-first into the cool waters.

As the seasons changed and the days cooled, both the children and women lessened. Autumn and winter did not require the same amount of cleanliness summer often sought. And the children found no pleasure in splashing in water that made their teeth chatter with cold—that, and their mothers were sure to give them a spanking were they to find out.

It was here, by the riverside, that Yeo Woon often sought refuge from the noise and all the hustle and bustle of the village folk. He had in front of him a book of the Confucian Analects. It was a grisly copy that was worn down with much use, handed down and passed through numerous owners. But it was a book, which was rare enough in these parts, and it was the thoughts in those books that were his greatest companions.

"If the people be led by laws, and uniformity sought to be given them by punishments, they will try to avoid the punishment, but have no sense of shame," Woon took a breath, letting the silence soak in his words. Somewhere far off, a bird gave a faint trill. He glanced over at the water just in time to see a fish splash the surface. Woon smiled. They were his audience. They were his companions.

He let his eyes drift back to the words on the page. "If they be led by virtue, and uniformity sought to be given them by the rules of propriety, they will have—" A sudden rustle to his right caused him to snap his head towards the direction of the sound. A few moments of waiting brought a small rabbit into the clearing. It glanced up at Woon with curiosity, but before Woon could do or say anything, it darted away as quickly as it came. Woon returned to his reading, "—they will have the sense of shame, and moreover will become good."

Sa Mo always told him that a country kid like Woon really had no use in learning the Confucian ideals. It was for 'officials', he would always say.

_'What good would it do for a kid like you to know anything? Heh? Even if you read all the books in the world, it wouldn't do you an ounce of good if you don't have any power to act on it. Believe me, you wouldn't want to be any of those court officials anyhow. Sittin' around on their bums all day spouting words...yah inuma, you know what would be helpful? Fetching me some more firewood! It's going to be a rainy day tomorrow. Go on.'_

Sa Mo would always tell him that it was useless knowledge, then comfort him when he saw how disheartened Woon looked by telling him how stupid it was to be an official anyways, and finally end the conversation by diverting his attention to something he ought to be doing.

Still, that never stopped Woon.

He tilted his head up and stared up at the sky. From his vantage point, the sun had already gone down over the top of the big old tree on top of the small riverside cliff, which meant it would be getting dark soon. He gently gathered up his book and grabbed his satchel from beside him. He took out a red cloth from the bag and slowly wrapped his Confucian Analects with it.

The cloth had been a memento from his mother. Or so he'd been told. Sa Mo often told stories of the kind woman who birthed Yeo Woon. She was beautiful and gentle, a certain flower amidst the dull and dreary masses. But to be honest, Woon could never seem to muster any semblance of fondness for a mother he couldn't remember. He had no memories from before he was eight. His mother had died when he was seven.

His father...

He never really thought much of his parents. They weren't there. Sa Mo was. 

"Ah!" Woon cried out in surprise as he accidentally dropped the book and cloth. He panicked and quickly bent down to see that the book was unharmed, giving a sigh of relief upon realizing it wasn't. He frowned at the dirt on his mother's red cloth, however.

Even if he never really thought much of his parents and couldn't feel a connection to parents that never were, he still couldn't bring himself to mistreat the cloth in any way. He placed the book on his satchel, then picked up the cloth and dusted it off.

'To my Son, Living is your greatest triumph,' it said. The beautifully written characters seemed to have faded slightly over time. It was also now smudged with dirt.

Yeo Woon frowned and decided it would be best to wash off the dirt now. Red cloth still splayed out over his hand, he walked over to the waterside.

Then out of nowhere, a violent gust of wind stormed through the small ravine, snatching away his red cloth and carrying it away with the current of the air. Woon gasped and quickly sprung into the river, chasing after it, not caring that the water was cold and biting into his legs. "Come back!" he cried after the cloth, watching with trepidation as to where it would land. The wind seemed to hear his plea and relinquished its captive, letting the red cloth drift slowly down into the calm river water. Woon, who had paused for a second after seeing his mother's memento fall, began to wade through the water towards it.

Upon reaching it, he picked it up out of the water and stared at it with an odd sense of relief.

Then, something else caught his eye.

There—farther down the river, seemed to be a giant log of sorts with black leaves floating in the water. Woon squinted, then widened his eyes immediately. It was a person! He made his way towards the person as quickly as the river water would allow him. When he reached the floating body, Woon was suddenly overcome with hesitance. Was the person dead? He gave a shudder at the thought. He never liked the idea of the dead.

Still, if there was a chance the person was alive, he needed to help them. He grabbed the body— _'No, person'_ , his mind corrected—and flipped him over while dragging the both of them back ashore. It was only until he collapsed onto the river bank did he realize the person in front of him was a just a boy his age.

"Um...hello?" Woon asked softly and poked the boy uncertainly. He leaned down to the boy's chest and turned his ear against the boy's mouth. Woon blinked rapidly and pursed his lips; the boy wasn't breathing. Snapping himself out of his stupor, Woon quickly placed two fingers along the boy's jugular vein, dreading what he might—or rather, might not—find.

_Badump...badump..._

Woon released a breath he didn't know he had been holding and quickly tried to recall the best way to resuscitate someone if they nearly drowned. There had been one summer when he was younger where a young girl had been in the same predicament and one of the adults had...He pursed his lips and hesitantly flipped the boy over on his back. If he remembered correctly, he was to sit on the other boy and...Woon placed both palms on the unconscious boy's upper back and cautiously began pushing. Sweat mingled with water and droplets fell onto the boy beneath him. Woon had never had to save anyone from drowning before. He wasn't even sure what he was doing was right.

_'The Killing Star shines over you...'_

Woon shook his head. It wasn't his fault the boy was like this. If he died—Woon felt his stomach drop—if he died, it wasn't Woon's fault.

The boy still wasn't breathing. Woon stared at the boy in dismay. He couldn't leave the other here to get help; help was too far away anyhow. And he couldn't carry the boy back to the village in time either. Woon wracked his head. He'd read up on medicinal texts before! A drowning victim had water in his lungs—the key was to get the water out of the victim so they could breathe again. What he was doing earlier made sense. But the boy was still not breathing. Woon's head snapped up—breathe! He could breathe for him! He quickly turned the boy around onto his back and bent down again—this time with his face facing the other's.

For a second, he himself forgot how to breathe, because he had never touched someone else's lips with his own before. Another second of hesitancy later, Woon took a deep breath, pressed his mouth onto the boy's and exhaled strongly.

After the fourth attempt—during which Woon was beginning to lose hope—the boy suddenly sprung to life coughing and gasping. Woon let out a small sigh of relief and collapsed on his bottom, giving the boy ample room to regain his bearings.

The boy continued to splutter and cough out the river water that had deprived him of precious oxygen and after a few minutes of heaving and coughing, finally managed to breathe regularly again, albeit a bit heavily.

After a few more minutes, Woon decided it was safe to make his presence known. "An nyoung...?" he greeted a tad awkwardly and smiled minutely when the boy turned to face him. "Are you alright now?" he asked slowly.

The boy sat up, wincing a little as he did so, and recoiled a bit instinctively. His eyes held a glint of suspicion. "And you are..."

Woon felt the corner of his mouth tugging into a small smirk. "...the person who just saved you?" he finished with a raise of his brows.

The boy had the decency to look slightly ashamed. "Ah..." He didn't meet Woon's eyes, instead, focusing on the surroundings around him. "Where am I?" he asked partially to Woon, but mostly to himself.

Woon answered anyways, "The river that runs near my village." He paused, looking thoughtful, "We don't really have a name for it, since to most of us, we just know it as 'home'." He stood up and turned his stare towards the boy again. Extending a hand, he continued, "I'm Yeo Woon. What's your name?"

The boy looked at the extended hand with a frown. For a second, Woon thought the boy was disgusted by his muddy fingers, but the next thing the boy said explained everything.

"I don't know. I don't know at all."

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And there we are! Reviews are love and questions are welcome. I am not Korean, nor do I know much about Korean history. Hopefully, I didn't butcher anything and history hasn't been rewritten by me in some form.
> 
> Here is the link to the video: http://youtu.be/GNqWJWe1YEU . It is wonderful, so please check it out!
> 
> Until next time!


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's been a while since I first posted the story. I apologize to anyone who was actually really keen on this story, but the lack of response was a little discouraging and then I became super busy and forgot about it haha. But the most important reason why I wasn't so keen on updating was because I know this story probably won't be finished.
> 
> Like I've mentioned before, one arc of this story is finished. So this arc can actually be read as a mini story on its own, but in context of my original plans for this fic...it's incomplete to me. Still, even this mini story is sitting at 58k words. So if you're just looking for some Dong Soo x Yeo Woon to read in any kind of setting, here you go! If you're waiting around to watch them grow into adults and have passionate adult love, well...sorry. Not there at all.
> 
> If you guys want me to go ahead and post all the chapters for this mini story...let me know? Otherwise I'm not really going to bother haha.
> 
> Well, this is un-betaed. But hope you enjoy!

For the seventh time since they left the river bank, Woon had to stop to readjust his hold on the precious cargo on his back. He breathed heavily with exertion, cursing himself mentally for not having any sort of stamina whatsoever. For once, he regretted not taking heed of Sa Mo's nagging at him to learn the way of the sword and instead picking up on books and texts.

"We're almost home. I can see the village from here," he managed between breaths, cocking his head slightly to the side to speak to the other. "Are you alright back there?" he asked.

He could feel the boy give a small nod and the latter muttered, "Thanks," and proceeded to bury his face into Woon's shoulders. Woon's lips twitched in a moment of humor. They had exchanged a bare minimum of words after concluding that the boy had no memories of who he was or how he ended up here. Woon decided that whatever it is the boy did or whoever the boy had been, he couldn't have been bad. The boy had a look of sorrow and loneliness that he saw all too often mirrored in his own eyes in the water. Perhaps they were two of a kind.

As they neared the village and its atmosphere of liveliness, a group of children could be heard squealing and shrieking over the usual sounds of a settling evening. The scent of firewood and crackling embers wafted over and shouts could be heard calling for supper.

He walked through the main gates—a pair of flimsily constructed wood bindings that hadn't been closed since sometime last year—and peered curiously at the source of the squealing.

"Ahhh Ajusshi is right behind me!" one of the children shrieked with excitement, quickly dodging behind another older child, who turned and ran away giggling as soon as she realized she was the next closest target.

"Ajusshi is coming for you!" Sa Mo growled in a deep eerie tone, stomping his way towards the children.

Woon shook his head with a smile tugging lightly on his lips. He shouted, "Sa Mo!" and caught the attention of his guardian. The ruggedly looking bear-man, as many in the village often dubbed him, whipped his head around faster than lightning and instantly transformed his features from one of silliness to one promising doom.

"Yah...You little rascal...where have you been all day?" he glared at Woon, wiping his brow with his arm as he left the group of disappointed children and stalked towards him. "And don't think I don't know you were the one to stick the little brats on me....che," he hissed threateningly as he came closer. "You'll be mucking out the stables again, you will!" he promised with a raise of his brows.

Woon looked away, mumbling something about a 'lazy old man'.

"Ha? Did you say something, kid?" Sa Mo questioned suspiciously. But before Woon could answer, Sa Mo nodded his head towards the boy on Woon's back. "Who's that?" he asked gruffly. The boy in question averted his gaze.

Woon looked over his shoulder and back at Sa Mo. "I found him by the river. He doesn't remember who he is. He's hurt, Sa Mo. Will you take a look at him?" Woon pleaded earnestly, something he rarely ever did. Sa Mo straightened his back and folded his arms, staring straight into Woon's determined eyes.

His mouth twitched. After a second, he grumbled, "Che...definitely bad news bringing in a kid who doesn't know his name..." He sighed and turned to walk towards their house, waving Woon along. The latter complied eagerly, dogging Sa Mo's footsteps carefully. 

* * *

"You say the child doesn't have any memories?" Jang Mi questioned thoughtfully with her hands on her hips. Sa Mo nodded slowly and made a rumble of acknowledgment. After taking the boy back to their house, Sa Mo made both the boy and Woon change into some dry clothes and set to check-up on the mysterious boy's injuries. There had been a long gash running up his right leg—seemed as though the boy had taken a nasty tumble on some rocks—and bruises littered the boy's entire torso. The boy had also taken a nasty blow to the head. Sa Mo was no healer, but he's pretty sure that was the reason why the boy lost his memories. Jang Mi, who often looked after the sick children and came up with the best ways to remedy illness and injury, had been the person Sa Mo turned to for advice.

"We've put him to bed now, after wrapping up his leg and changing him out of his clothes. But he said he couldn't remember anything at all. Not even his own name. Aish..." Sa Mo grimaced as he thought of the predicament Woon had managed to land them in. He couldn't blame the kid, though. Woon was simply doing what he thought was right. He was simply doing what he would have done for a potential friend. Accompanying that thought was a sudden rush of guilt. Sa Mo knew that Woon knew his past was not a normal one. He may have had no memories—he snorted at the ironic parallel to their situation now—of the incident that claimed his mother's life, nor did he know the circumstances of his own childhood, but Woon always knew to an extent that his past was some sort of Pandora's box best left unopened.

And thus, the child grew up lonely.

Sa Mo knew of the things people said about Woon around the village—rumors were harder to block than a monsoon. Of the people here, only he and Jang Mi knew of the value in these rumors, but neither would ever provide answers the villagers secretly sought. What they couldn't prevent, however, was the cold manner in which the villagers often treated Woon. And as if the adults weren't enough, the children learned to pick up on their parents' dislike of the boy as they grew older.

Sa Mo was wary about the new boy. There was something—perhaps not _about_ the boy, but that the boy brought with him—that the butcher didn't like. He voiced his concern to Jang Mi, "I don't like this. Who is this boy? There is not a village for miles around here, and the current of the river couldn't have carried him this far—not without drowning him." Sa Mo leaned back against the table and scratched his beard, frustrated. Suddenly, he felt a hand gently touch his elbow. Jang Mi was smiling at him. Sa Mo could sense his cheeks coloring a tad from the intimate gesture. Jang Mi seemed to notice his reaction and pulled away, her own cheeks growing warm.

"It will be fine," she assured him, "Woon is a smart child, and no Fate or Destiny will change that." She gave a slightly awkward but comforting smile, nodding at the same time to strengthen her point.

Sa Mo sighed. "I'm afraid they won't need to," he whispered quietly.

* * *

He awoke to the sound of someone talking.

At first, he thought they were talking to him. He tried replying, but his throat felt thick and swollen and all he could manage was a groan. Immediately, the voice halted. He slowly sat up and immediately clutched his head and shut his eyes. The flood of brightness caused odd star-like shapes dance around inside his eyelids. A sharp residual pain spiked through his head, causing him to gasp a quick intake of breath.

"Hey, don't sit up so fast. You're only making your headache worse, idiot," someone chided him not unkindly. It was the same voice that was talking to him earlier.

"'mmmnot..." he hissed out after swallowing a few times.

"Huh?" the other someone replied in confusion.

"'mmnot an idiot...!" he finally said, clearly offended by the earlier remark. For a moment, there was silence. And for a moment, he almost regretted his harsh tone. But that thought soon receded when the silence was pierced by the flood of light laughter.

He snapped his eyes open and rounded on the other, "I'm not!" He felt shame burning through his being, for reasons he can't even fathom since logic told him it was simply a joke. His companion didn't let up in his laughter at all.

Suddenly, the anger and humiliation he felt melted away to be replaced with uncertainty—the other boy had stopped laughing and was now staring at him with a strange look of curiosity. "W-What?" he asked uncomfortably.

"You look a lot better than you did yesterday," the other commented satisfactorily. "Sa Mo said you would," he seemed to add as an afterthought.

"Who's Sa Mo?"

"My guardian. But he's like my abeoji in all aspects." Seeing that he was getting no response, the other boy cocked an eyebrow and continued, "The man we saw yesterday? After I carried you back here?"

A look of confusion. No reply.

"Do you remember what happened yesterday, at least?" the other boy asked, frowning. And suddenly, his lips twitched into a half-smile. He extended his hand and said, "My name is Yeo Woon. Want to become friends?"

Immediately, yesterday's events poured into his mind, submerging him in thoughts and emotions. He remembered seeing the big bear-man. He remembered being fed some light soup and getting his leg dressed. He remembered seeing the village while the other boy—Woon—carried him. He remembered gasping for air and choking on life. He remembered bubbles and darkness and the sensation of burning and the image of the sun, floating away from his fingertips—

"—hey...hey! You OK?" Woon was busy waving his hands frantically in front of the boy's face. He only stopped when he noticed the latter was now staring at him curiously.

Woon blinked.

The sound of the door opening distracted them both. In walked Sa Mo, carrying a freshly killed swine; he held onto the massive pig by its legs and fumbled around the room in search of something. Behind him, Jang Mi followed with a basket of ointments.

Woon wrinkled his nose in disgust, yet was unable to tear his eyes away from the bloody carcass migrating around the room—he always did feel a twinge queasy at the sight of blood.

"Meat goes in the meat room, not here to be waved around!" Jang Mi chided after Sa Mo lightheartedly, sending a wink in Woon's direction, the latter shying away a bit as she did so. Jang Mi felt her heart sink a little knowing Woon still seemed uncomfortable with her after all these years.

"Ajumma," Woon acknowledged respectfully.

"Tch. If I had some rope, I would," Sa Mo muttered under his breath, but followed Jang Mi's direction and walked into the next room, figuring out some way to deal with his precious baggage.

Woon glanced over at Sa Mo's retreating figure and raised an eyebrow. "He only ever listens to Ajumma..." he muttered to the air.

Jang Mi's eyes widened and immediately, she went scarlet. "Aigoo...wh-what nonsense are you speaking of? Stupid child..." she stuttered embarrassedly and hurried over to the boy on the floor. She sat down on the ground and set her basket of ointments down beside her. She peered at the boy for a few moments and smiled. "Hello. I am Jang Mi—a friend of Sa Mo's. Sa Mo told me what happened to you, yesterday, and I'm here to see if I can't do something about those bruises of yours!" she said.

The boy nodded, allowing Jang Mi to take hold of his arm.

"Now then, let's see," Jang Mi said as she inspected his arm thoughtfully and moved on to poke and prod his ribs and torso, eliciting a hiss from the boy now and then. She then proceeded onto his head, turning it sideways so she could get a better look at his concussion. "You really don't have any of your memories? Not even your name?" she asked gently, pausing to gaze at the boy. The latter shook his head, and Jang Mi left it at that. She took out an ointment from her basket and opened it, dabbing some of it on the boy. Beside her, Woon plopped down and looked into the basket.

"Is there anything I can do to help?" Woon asked quietly, pleasantly surprising Jang Mi because he rarely spoke up when she was around.

Jang Mi pursed her lips for a second, not pausing in her application of medicine to the boy's body. "Hmm...you can help your new friend come up with a name for him," she suggested, looking from her patient to Woon and back to gauge their reactions. "You certainly can't call him 'you' forever," she shook a finger at Woon.

Woon seemed to brighten at the idea. He tilted his head thoughtfully and then turned his full attention to the other boy. "What do you want to be called?" Woon asked.

The boy muttered something that Woon couldn't quite catch. "What?" he asked.

"...Thank you..." the boy spoke softly.

Woon blinked. "You...want to be called 'thank you'?" he repeated disbelievingly.

The boy rolled his eyes. "No! I just—" he started, "—thanks for saving me."

Understanding fell on Woon's face, and he offered a meek grin. "No problem," he said. Jang Mi smiled at the interaction between the two.

"Dong Soo!" Woon shouted abruptly and promptly looked a bit abashed at being loud, especially in front of his ajumma. "We can call you 'Dong Soo'? How's that—ow!" he screamed when something thwacked his head from behind him. He turned around to glare at Sa Mo who was holding a giant ladle in his hands.

"Don't name the boy something you named your dog!" Sa Mo scoffed, giving Woon a chiding look.

Woon frowned seriously. "He was a good dog...and he was my friend. Isn't that what Dong Soo is now?" he finished with a look of confusion that held a hint of insecurity.

"You—"

"I like it," interrupted the boy. Sa Mo looked at him with disbelief while Woon simply stared at him. Jang Mi arched a delicate brow, amused by the back and forth between the three males. 'Dong Soo', now newly dubbed, sniffled and rubbed his nose. "It's...I like it," he repeated again. He was being truthful. He liked that the other boy, Woon, had called him 'friend'. It made him feel...warm inside. And for the first time since awakening without his memories, he felt a sense of security and comfort wash over him. 

* * *

"What passage were you reading, before?" Dong Soo inquired after Jang Mi had left the two boys alone, reminding them that the vegetables needed sorting before lunch.

Woon looked at him questioningly.

"I thought you were talking to me. But you were reading one of the Confucian texts—when I woke up?" Dong Soo prodded while sorting through the lettuce the way Jang Mi had shown them.

Recognition flickered over Woon's facials, followed by surprise. "You recognize the lines out of the Confucian Analects?" he asked in slight awe.

Dong Soo cocked his head to his side and pondered for a moment. "I did..." he began slowly, "I don't know why...but it's familiar." He tried concentrating on the source of the familiarity, but it just wouldn't stick.

Woon didn't seem to notice as his excitement seemed to grow. "Then you also know the Great Learning? The Doctrine of the Mean? The Five Classics as well? My favorite Confucian saying is _'_ _Virtue is not left to stand alone. He who—'_ "

" _'—who practices it will have neighbors',_ " Dong Soo finished at the same time with an expression of wonder. For a second, neither boy spoke nor moved. They stood there, by the kitchen table, staring at each other with surprise and a growing sense of elation.

Woon was the first to break the silence. "I've never been able to talk to anyone like this before," he stated quietly.

Dong Soo replied with a grin, "Me neither."

Woon laughed a little. "Well, it's not like you were able to do much talking between yesterday and today anyhow," he pointed out.

Dong Soo shook his head and said, "No. I think...I think that even before...I don't think I've talked to anyone like this before—" he gestured emptily with his hands, "—either. It feels strange," he confessed truthfully.

The other boy took in his words with somewhat of a shy smile. Then suddenly, his expression turned thoughtful. "You might be the son of some government official," Woon began slowly with rising brows, "which would explain why the texts are familiar to you." He turned his head and gave Dong Soo a once-over and promptly stifled a chuckle. "Or not," he amended, giving Dong Soo's raggedy clothing a pointed look.

Dong Soo smacked his lips and let out a huff of superiority. "Yah," he rounded on Woon while puffing out his chest, "this outfit right here is a—"

"—is a...?" Woon echoed with a look of incredulity, twitching his lips into a grin when a lack of response came up. "Obviously not something an official's son would be caught wearing," he finished.

Dong Soo rolled his eyes and went back to sorting the vegetables, throwing away one leaf that managed to rot away completely. A few seconds later, he promptly burst out laughing, startling Woon, who merely stared at him questioningly.

Dong Soo shook his head. "I just had the image of me, in my beggar's uniform, standing proudly in front of all the ministers of the court. Pretty hilarious sight, no?" he said, grinning with mirth.

Woon furrowed his brows. "That's not a funny image at all. To be brought before all the ministers can only mean you've done some serious ills," he countered.

Dong Soo snorted, "And here I thought you'd be a person of some humor." He didn't tell Woon that when he imagined standing in front of all the ministers of the court, it wasn't from the vantage point of a servant or criminal that he saw through, but that of the king's.

* * *

Two weeks passed by without much notice by either Dong Soo or Woon. The former had begun to settle in quite nicely into his new niche, efficiently earning his place as Sa Mo's new favorite gofer boy—the position previously held by Woon. It seemed that Dong Soo had a knack for ticking off the grumpy butcher even more than Woon did, and all too often Sa Mo's nagging and shouting could be heard ringing through the house—or even village.

"Ow! How was I supposed to know that was a beer keg? It looked like a chamber pot to me—" Dong Soo cried out defensively, running for cover as Sa Mo chased him with a stick from behind.

"Of course it was a beer keg, you little brat! My precious year-old beer...Yah inuma—get back here so I can hurt you!" the man bound after the younger boy, dead set on catching the latter so he could avenge his 'reserved-for-special-occasions' beer.

"Gluttony old man!" Dong Soo provoked, halting to stick a tongue out and jumping away just in time to miss the stick coming down on the spot he just stood in a moment ago. He just managed to run to the door when it opened, revealing Woon. "Woon-ah!" he shouted with relief, "Save me!" He grabbed the other and hastily ducked behind him, effectively halting a rampaging Sa Mo.

Woon, who appeared thoroughly confused, looked from Sa Mo down to Dong Soo, who was clutching his arm and hiding behind him like a frightened chick would its mother.

"Inuma..." Sa Mo seethed thickly, a hard glint shining in his eyes. "Woon, get out of the way. No good comes out of protecting this criminal..." he spoke dangerously.

Woon nodded once and quickly moved aside, forcing Dong Soo to let go.

"Ahh! W-Woon-ah!" Dong Soo cried out in disbelief. "You traitor!" he accused with a mock hurtful tone. Woon shrugged and shrunk back into the door frame, allowing Sa Mo clear sight of his victim. "Y-Yah Sa Mo," Dong Soo began nervously, holding up two hands in truce, "You must be tired...you should take a seat, maybe?"

Sa Mo tilted his head thoughtfully and pretended to consider the idea. "You know, you're right. I will take a seat," he agreed, "after I give a good beating, you little rascal!" And he lunged for Dong Soo, who was quicker than a mouse and sprung out into the streets screaming for dear life.

Sa Mo however, did not chase after him and, satisfied that he had scared the poor boy enough to fulfill his punishment, let out a throaty 'Aish' before turning back around into the house and plopping down on a stool. He poured himself a cup of rice wine—which came from the keg that _hadn't_ been desecrated by the stupid kid—and downed it in one gulp.

He looked back up at the door and noticed Woon still standing in the doorframe, staring out at the streets. The boy was tilting his head left and right to get a better angle at—what he assumed was probably—Dong Soo running around in the streets. Woon finally gave up, however, and left the house shouting, "Yah...yah Baek Dong Soo!"

Sa Mo grunted a little to himself, a smile forcing its way up to his mouth. He shook his head as he stared at the door where Woon was a few seconds ago.

Baek Dong Soo.

Sa Mo snorted. Named partly after a dog and partly after one of the men Sa Mo respected most in his life. It was his hyung's name, and that kid would live up to it, it seemed.

As wary as he had been of the boy at first, it hadn't taken Sa Mo long to grow a certain fondness for the boy. The story they told the villagers was that Dong Soo was the son of Sa Mo's deceased hyung and recently deceased widow. The boy had thus, fallen into his care. He soon began to find that the story might as well have been true. He saw aspects of that boy in the hyung he missed so dearly, and he began to treat the boy as his own.

But the biggest reason for Sa Mo's fondness of the boy was the way he treated Woon.

Even though Woon had been the one to instigate their growing friendship, Sa Mo knew that Dong Soo was the one who was much more sociable and out-going, once he became more comfortable amongst the strangers. It warmed his heart and—he will never admit it out loud—once stung his eyes a bit that Woon finally had a friend who looked out for him.

Dong Soo would not leave Woon behind. He was sure of that.

He knew Woon always longed to run along and play with the other boys and girls his age, but the other children always avoided him and ostracized him, no doubt due to fair warning from their parents. Perhaps with Dong Soo there, Woon would finally have a chance to be a part of the group. Sa Mo shook his head. It didn't matter. Woon had found himself a worthy friend in Dong Soo, and having one worthy friend mattered more than having all the friends in the world.

Suddenly, a taste of sourness filled his mouth, as well as his thoughts. He glanced down at his wine with a wrinkle of his nose. A year's hard work of waiting for beer, all gone to waste. He ended up pouring the entire batch—along with a part of his heart—out onto the back porch this morning. Thinking about the incident again made him angry, and he squeezed the wine cup in his hand. Whatever fondness he recalled for the boy was slowly retreating its way back to the dark recesses of his mind. His eyebrows twitched. Oh, that boy would pay...  

* * *

Woon spun a blade of grass between his fingers and asked conversationally, "How did you get Sa Mo's beer keg confused with a chamber pot anyways?" He turned to look at the boy sitting down beside him, squinting a little at the sun entering his eyes.

Dong Soo gave a short 'hmph' and poked the ground with an idle twig. "How could I not? The two looked practically identical!" he protested loudly.

Woon snorted lightly. "One is a little short round pot while the other is a giant round one with the 'beer' character written on the side," he reasoned amusedly.

"Exactly! They're both round pots—" Dong Soo started. Woon looked like he wanted to interject, but the former gave him no chance, rambling on, "—and see here..." He took his stick and drew something in the dirt. Woon cocked his head sideways, trying to decipher the image. "This," he pointed to the thing he drew, "was the chamber pot." He then drew another object. "And this," he said tapping at the second drawing, "was how the beer keg looked like."

Woon frowned. "They look exactly the same—" he began.

"Hah! See? You think so too!" Dong Soo sat back with his arms folded proudly.

Woon had to pretend to rub his nose to prevent Dong Soo from seeing the grin that was plaguing his face. He decided it was better not to point out that Dong Soo's artistic abilities left much to be desired and that the oval shape on the left looked just like the oval shape on the right but neither actually looked like either the chamber pot or the beer keg. He let out a cough to stifle the laughter that was made its way into his chest.

Dong Soo narrowed his eyes suspiciously. "You're laughing at me, aren't you?" he accused.

Woon couldn't help it anymore. "No! Not at all. You're right. They do look exactly the same!" he lied obviously while failing to hide his full-on grin. Dong Soo stared at him intensely for a few more seconds before letting out a laugh himself and falling on his back in laughter.

The boys sat and laid there for a few moments simply laughing.

After their laughter died down, Dong Soo spoke up, "But you know, I really thought he was going to kill me right there!" He gestured wildly with his arms. "And then he came at me with his stick and was all like 'Stop so I can kill you now!'" he emphasized by waving his stick around in the air. "Did you see how he ran? I never knew the old man could run like that! Especially with that beer belly slowing him down," Dong Soo shook his head half in horror and half in admiration.

"Hmm...it's probably because you've been giving him enough training over the past two weeks," Woon pointed out, referring to the time when Dong Soo accidentally set fire to Sa Mo's tunic, the time when Dong Soo told Mi So—Jang Mi's little niece—that Sa Mo really wanted his hair braided, the time when Dong Soo fell into the pig pen and then trekked pig filth all across their house and the time when Dong Soo told Jang Mi that Sa Mo was looking for a wife and that Jang Mi should look for a husband, hinting very strongly the two had mutual interests that should be met with mutual benefits. All of the incidents ended with Sa Mo chasing after the mischievous boy.

Dong Soo nodded slowly, as though seriously contemplating the reasoning. Then abruptly he stopped, let out an 'Ah!' and sat straight up, staring at Woon with an unreadable expression on his facials.

The other boy backed away a little as Dong Soo edged close. "What?" Woon asked uncertainly. Dong Soo continued to creep closer and closer, eyes locking onto Woon's. "W-What?" Woon asked again shakily.

 "You betrayed me," Dong Soo stated in low tones. "Woon-ah," he said seriously, "I'll give you a five second head start in memory of our friendship. But what you've done cannot be easily forgiven. Five...four..."

Woon's eyes widened, and he dashed away before Dong Soo could finish counting. The latter leapt up immediately and ran after him, screaming, "Wait I wasn't done counting! You don't actually—yah Yeo Woon!"

 


	3. Chapter 3

"Damn Woon-ah that guy, shouldn't have given him that head start, chincha..." Dong Soo muttered while scratching his head. "Who knew the bastard could actually run so fast? First Sa Mo and now Woon-ah. Never knew the girly kid had it in him," he murmured to himself while peering around the village to see if he could catch sight of the other boy. No such luck. The boy disappeared as swiftly as a ghost. He had even climbed a tree to search for Woon! Grumpily, he leapt down from the tree and ambled down a dirt path.

 Something bumping his ankle broke him free of his thoughts. Dong Soo bent down and picked up a ball. He was inspecting it curiously for a few moments when someone shouted, "Yah!" He looked up to his right and saw another boy around his age but slightly taller and broader jogging towards him.

 The other stopped in front of him and studied Dong Soo for a few seconds, contemplation spread across his features. "You're new around here, right?" he asked in a manner that suggested he already knew the answer to his question and was taking the opportunity to judge Dong Soo. "You're the butcher's nephew?"

 Dong Soo nodded and let out a casual, 'Yeah, what?' before glancing down at the ball in his hands as if asking if the other boy wanted his ball back. He cocked an eyebrow and held up the ball a little higher, offering it back to the stranger.

 The bigger boy suddenly grinned and introduced, "The name's Kim Dae Ho." He nudged his chin towards the ball in Dong Soo's hands. "Wanna play?" he offered friendlily.

 Dong Soo rapidly swept the parameter for any sight of Yeo Woon and decided to give up on his pursuit. _'Maybe Woon-ah will come around and join up_ ,' he thought. He grinned back at Dae Ho. "Sure. The name's Baek Dong Soo," he echoed, "don't forget it." He tossed the ball back to the other boy.

 Dae Ho chuckled as he caught the ball, and he turned behind him and waved a group of children over. "Hey guys! Come meet our new friend!" he shouted at the bunch of rag-tag kids. A group of seven or eight children came running.

The youngest was a little girl of six or seven. There was one other older girl—she seemed to be about eleven or twelve—and the rest of the group consisted of boys from what looked like the ages of ten to sixteen.

Dae Ho was obviously the ringleader, being both bigger and older than the rest. He carried the ball in the nook of his arm and clasped an arm around Dong Soo's shoulder, turning him to face the group. "Alright guys, this here is the butcher's nephew, Baek Dong Soo. He's the one who came in from another village a couple of weeks ago. Say hi, guys!" Dae Ho ordered lightheartedly.

A chortle of various greetings filled the air followed by one of the boys asking, "Is it true you used to live in the capital?" His face was one of wonder and awe. "What's it like there?"

Before Dong Soo could say anything, Dae Ho cut in for him, "Guys, he's just another village brat like us, there's no need to harass—"

But it was too late, as excited questions soon bombarded him.

"Is it true they have candies of seven different colors over there?—"

"Do the palace guards actually kill anyone who comes within a ten feet radius of the palace gates?—"

"Do the women there really wear other women's hair on their head?—"

"Have you ever—"

"Guys!" Dae Ho shouted while raising two hands to calm down the squabble of children. "Let the man breathe, alright?" He patted Dong Soo's back sympathetically with an apologetic grin. "Now...the important question is...do you play?" Dae Ho asked as he tossed the ball up and down in his hand.

Dong Soo wasn't sure if he did, but he took the ball from Dae Ho's hands and punted it clear across the yard, smiling to himself as he did. "Yup. Sure do," he replied, liking the natural feeling that came with kicking the ball.

Dae Ho let out a hearty laugh and barked, "Alright—time to team up!" 

* * *

Running all the way back from the fields outside the village really took a toll on a person, Woon thought as he downed a few handfuls of water from the well bucket. He quickly checked behind him to make sure Dong Soo wasn't sneaking up from behind hid and to his surprise, he found the entire yard to be absolutely empty.

He took another drink and leaned with his back against the mouth of the well. He looked around to see if Dong Soo was hiding in some tree or behind some bushes, but found that the other was in neither places. Woon smiled, figuring Dong Soo must have gotten tired and given up halfway through. He shook his head at his friend's predictable behavior and decided he ought to go back to the house—Sa Mo probably had chores for him to do.

Woon started his slow trek home. Along the way, he heard the sound of cheering and shouting, along with the occasional 'thump!'. Curious, he tracked the source of the noise, turned a corner and found himself facing the big playing yard in the middle of the village. A hint of melancholy flickered over his facials, and he was about to turn and leave when he heard someone shout, "This way, Dong Soo!"

Woon froze. _'Dong Soo?'_ He took a few steps back and peered into the mass of children, searching for a familiar mop of curly black hair. And there he was.

Indeed, Dong Soo was running in the middle of the group, dribbling the ball and passing it like a natural. Woon couldn't help but smile lightly at the sight. His mood seemed to uplift just a pinch. Even though some insecurities bubbled up in the back of his mind, Woon was glad to see Dong Soo making new friends—friends that he himself was never able to get along with. He was happy that the other was able to do what he himself could never do. The game they were playing seemed like a lot of fun. Woon could feel his own legs twitching in response to the players on the field. The cheering suddenly grew in anticipation as Dong Soo got a hold of the ball and edged closer to the goal—a pair of sticks stuck in the ground. The next thing Woon knew, Dong Soo shot the ball and it went clear between the two goalposts. Everyone clapped and cheered and, caught up in the excitement of the game, Woon was just about to open his mouth to shout Dong Soo's name when he stopped himself.

He bit his lip.

_"Sorry. My eomeoni said you bring bad luck. Wasn't Shin's injury your fault? He almost died."_

Woon sighed, giving a grinning Dong Soo one last glance before walking back towards his house. He didn't want to believe the whole 'destined killer' talk the villagers spread about him. But, Woon bit his lip uncomfortably, he did have serious doubts. There had been many close brushes with death encountered by those who interacted with Woon. And even though he knew how crazy it was, Woon couldn't help but wonder if Death really followed him like the villagers claimed.

The first summer he moved here, he had been playing in the river alongside the other children when one of the boys he was playing with slipped and bashed his head on a rock because Woon had shouted at him to watch out for the water snake, which turned out to be absolutely harmless.

A few weeks after that, a stranger came into the village and stayed at Jang Mi's place, claiming to have traveled in from the capital and had some sort of relations with Sa Mo and Jang Mi. Apparently, an argument concerning Woon had taken place that night between her, the stranger and Sa Mo, and one of the villagers unintentionally overheard the conversation. The next day, the village had been swamped with the rumors of Woon. The villagers were extremely superstitious, and it didn't help that the contents of said rumors carried ill omens.

Woon never found out if that particular account was true. He didn't know if it was someone who overheard and spread the rumor or the stranger himself who told, but there was one thing he remembered clearly: the stranger's cold hard gaze trained on him, and his words—

_"The Killing Star shines over you..."_

Sa Mo always told him it was a bunch of nonsense though, and that he really didn't need to be worrying about it. He had smiled apologetically, telling Woon that ignorance was something you couldn't change in others easily and was the fault of the person wielding that ignorance. Woon tried to take his words to heart and not dwell on it anymore.

But as time moved on and the other children found more and more excuses to avoid him until ultimately, they didn't interact with him altogether, Woon found it harder and harder to keep faith and easier and easier to doubt. Things often happened that he couldn't control yet was often blamed for. One time, a little girl fell seriously ill after consuming the pork that Woon had delivered—or so they asserted. Sa Mo had been adamant that it was utterly ridiculous to fault Woon for such a thing, and that if anything, it was Sa Mo himself who ought to be blamed. But the mother didn't see it that way and deep down, Woon wasn't sure he saw it that way either. ' _It wasn't I who killed, but it was because of me he died,_ ' as a Chinese saying went. If he _was_ a harbinger of misfortune...

Woon always felt that there was something about his past that Sa Mo was keeping from him. Sa Mo told him his mother never talked about his father and that his mother was killed by bandits when he was seven and left it at that. He didn't ever seem keen on talking about Woon's history, nor Sa Mo's own history with his mother so Woon decided to leave the issue untouched. The adolescent was a rather practical person and knew that some stones were better left unturned.

He opened the latch to their house and walked in, pulling the door close behind him. "Sa Mo!" he yelled out, looking around to house to see if the man was in. Silence greeted him. He walked over to the post that held his satchel and reached in to take out his book. He sat down at the table and just managed to flip the cover of the book when the door swung open.

Sa Mo walked in with some firewood. Upon noticing Woon, he nodded to the latter and said, "Go fetch some water, kid. We're running low." He dumped the firewood in a corner and dusted his hands. He craned his head and looked around. "Where's the other brat?" he questioned Woon.

"He's playing ball with the Dae Ho and the others," Woon stated simply, already putting away his book and fetching the water buckets.

"Is that so?" Sa Mo retorted with a raise of his eyebrows. Woon nodded casually. "Well, go fetch him too and tell him to stop horsing around and come help out, chincha..." he muttered while wiping his head with his forearm.

Woon nodded again and left with the water buckets.

* * *

 When Woon returned from fetching the water—he had not seen Dong Soo outside again and assumed the other had gone back—he found the boy and Sa Mo sitting down at the table across from each other.

"—less time with that good-for-nothing group and spend more time with Woon doing some more chores around here!" Sa Mo was scolding the other boy. The sound of Woon kicking the door close with his foot distracted Sa Mo. "Ah, Woon! Put the water in the barrel, and then I've got something to talk to you two about," he changed the topic hastily and obviously, rising from his stool and walking away.

Woon did as he was told; he poured the two buckets into the water barrel and took Sa Mo's now unoccupied seat across from Dong Soo, who was still pouting with discontent. "Stupid old man...what's wrong with making new friends? Tch. He's just worried he's losing another slave..." he muttered with his head resting on his folded arms.

Woon grimaced internally, knowing full well why Sa Mo didn't want Dong Soo to spend time with the other kids.

"Hah? Did I just hear a complaint, Dong Soo-ya?" Sa Mo came up behind Dong Soo and inquired innocently. Dong Soo whipped around and waved him away impatiently, a sneer drawn on his face and some venomous words spewing forth from his lips.

Woon laughed a little and said, "So I saw you playing ball with Dae Ho and them. It's good that you're making other friends," he stated casually but loudly, ensuring that Sa Mo would hear. He saw the older man pause a little behind Dong Soo.

Dong Soo brightened up immediately. "Yeah! They're a pretty cool bunch. Hey, if you saw us, how come you didn't join?" he asked quizzically. Then he leaned in. "Don't worry about Sa Mo, you should learn to throw off your chains of oppression and join the world of free children!" he whispered conspiratorially, wagging his eyebrows for effect.

Woon chuckled at his friend's antics and shook his head. "It's alright, thanks. I'm not a game sort of person. I prefer my books," he easily dished out the excuse.

"Chincha," Dong Soo let out and rolled his eyes. "Don't you get bored of that? I mean, I like the Analects too, but one can only take so much of them without getting bored," he reasoned fairly.

"Well that's what separates people like me and people like you," Woon said, putting on an air of poshness. "My biggest muscle is up here," he said tapping his head, "whereas yours..." Woon pursed his lips in contemplation and acted stumped as to where Dong Soo's biggest muscle might be.

"Aish—chincha!" Dong Soo reached over and flicked Woon's head. "See how your biggest muscle like that! Hah!" And both fell back into their seats laughing—Dong Soo nearly fell off of his stool while Woon clutched his and hunched over in laughter.

"Yah, yah, yah, yah! Pipe down, would you two?" Sa Mo yelled at them. "Now come over here. I've got something for you two," he said after they stopped laughing.

Dong Soo and Woon glanced at each other curiously before standing up to follow Sa Mo out the door into the front yard. He turned around and said, "Wait here," and went around the side of the house. He came back holding two—what seemed to be—rather smooth wooden sticks.

"What? You getting old, old man? Need two canes?" Dong Soo cocked his head to the side with a smirk.

"Tch! Inuma..." Sa Mo spat in Dong Soo's direction, reprimand outlining his facials. "These here," he began, now driving attention back to and holding up the two sticks, "are your training swords." He finished by tossing one stick—sword—at each boy.

"Now, I think it's a good idea for you guys to learn just some basics. The other village brats may not ever learn, but you two are special—you two are under my guardianship. And I'll tell you now, this ajusshi here isn't your average butcher. He has a few interesting stories from his youth and learning swordplay is one of them. There was this one time when—ah....that's a story for another time. Anyhow...if you don't want to learn after this, then it's fine. But—"

"I want to learn properly!" Woon shouted out uncharacteristically, surprising both Sa Mo and Dong Soo. He shrunk back a little and repeated a little more quietly, "I...want to learn the way of the sword."

Sa Mo stared at Woon with raised eyebrows. "You never wanted to before. What changed?" he asked and crossed his arms, genuinely curious at the abrupt change of attitude.

Woon shrugged dismissively, gazing off to the side. "I just do," he explained feebly. Truthfully, he wanted to because he still recalled the day he rescued Dong Soo; not having any stamina whatsoever was a pain, and he really didn't want to experience that feeling of helplessness again. But that was only part of the reason.

The main—bigger—reason was that he knew Dong Soo wanted to learn properly. And he figured that if Sa Mo were to teach both of them, he'd be able to spend more time with Dong Soo practicing the sword, at least. And if Dong Soo started spending more time with his new friends...He glanced at Dong Soo out of the corner of his eye and found the other beaming like a maniac.

"We can be brothers-in-arm!" Dong Soo declared enthusiastically, grabbing hold of the nook of Woon's arm and posing ridiculously. He turned to Sa Mo and stated, "We will learn properly, Master!"

Sa Mo looked like his heart stopped from shock. After taking a few seconds to recover, he let out a hearty laugh. "Ho ho... _Now_ it's 'Master', is it? You cheeky little brat," he ruffled Dong Soo's hair affectionately. He nodded and scratched his beard. "Alright, let's start then, shall we?"

Sa Mo proceeded to teach them some of the basic stances, which Dong Soo seemed oddly familiar with and Woon picked up naturally after a few pointers here and there. Of course, along with martial arts came the tedious training of the mind, body and soul. Luckily for them, Sa Mo decided to leave that for tomorrow. He left them to practice the basic stances while going back inside to prepare dinner.

"No—your left leg shouldn't be so forward," Dong Soo criticized while pointing to Woon's stance with his wooden sword. He was currently orbiting Woon slowly, observing the latter's form from all angles, and stroke his chin thoughtfully.

Woon shifted. "Like this?" he asked, glancing up at the other boy.

Dong Soo nodded and scratched his forehead. "But don't throw your weight so forward. Keep it more centered and balanced—you don't need an enemy knocking you onto the ground just 'cause you can't stand properly," he said, grinning lightly while prodding the back of Woon's knees gently in good humor.

Woon leaned back a little, then forward a little, and then back a little again.

Dong Soo shook his head firmly and commented, "You're holding your arms too high, Woon-ah. Here—" He leaned his wooden sword against the side of the fence and came up behind Woon. He reached out and grabbed the latter's two arms and brought them down a notch. "You also need to relax a little more," he noted, touching the other's shoulders and pressuring them lightly. "And your feet are a bit too far apart," he concluded, reaching out and grabbing the other's waist, pulling Woon up a tad.

However, he didn't let go after Woon adjusted his posture, and for a second, neither of them moved. Woon was the first to react and let out a small cough, the tiniest amount of heat rising to his cheeks. "Thanks," he murmured, and Dong Soo immediately dropped his hands and wiped them on his thighs as though they had just touched slime.

"Yeah! N-no problem, ha..." he smiled awkwardly and moved aside to grab his sword. Dong Soo could feel cold sweat prickling down his body and shook himself. Well that was weird, he thought, determinedly ignoring the slightly elevated pace of his heartbeat. He glanced down quickly at his hands, thinking about how nice it had felt with them around his friend's waist. He had almost wanted to pull the other—

"You're really good with the sword," Woon's voice cut into his thoughts, thankfully. The other seemed to have recovered from whatever it was they had a moment ago. The younger boy—as they'd found out during a rather one-sided argument about seniority—sat down on the ground and stretched his legs, sore from the past couple of hours of practicing. "Did you know how to wield one from before?" Woon asked, craning his head up at Dong Soo.

Dong Soo, grateful and mentally thanking whatever gods resided above for the change of topic, easily let his thoughts slide into Woon's question. He plopped down on the ground next to Woon. "Hmm...It definitely felt natural to me, like I'd practiced for a long time," he admitted.

Woon nodded and let out a small smile. "First Confucius Analects and now swordplay? Anything else you have up your sleeve?" he teased, nudging the other a bit with his elbow.

Dong Soo snorted, "If I do, it'll come as much of a surprise to me as it would you." Then all of a sudden, his face grew somber. If Woon noticed, he didn't say anything and waited instead for Dong Soo to speak his mind. It wasn't until a minute later that the latter broke the silence. "Hey Woon-ah..."

"Hmm?"

"What—who do you think I was...before I—before you found me?" he asked quietly.

Woon gradually took a deep breath, providing himself ample time to gather a response before speaking, "I think..." He paused, frowning, suddenly unsure of how to approach the topic again. "I don't think you were a village brat like the rest of us," he confessed softly, almost afraid to voice his thoughts, as though the admission of such a difference would leave a monumental gap between the two of them. But Woon's fears were not unfounded. If Dong Soo regained his memories and previous life and was in fact someone of higher social status than Woon—which was very likely, considering Woon position as a butcher's ward placed him in the lowest tier of society, then chances were he would never be able to see his friend again.

Dong Soo nodded slowly, brows furrowed in intense contemplation. Both were silent for a moment, during which shouting and clanging could be heard from across the small village and the tell-all signs of a dying day spread through every street.

"What if—" Dong Soo broke off uncertainly and worried his bottom lip. "What if I did something bad?" he asked in a surprisingly vulnerable and tender manner. When a few seconds passed without any sound from the other, Dong Soo looked up at Woon in white panic. "Woon-ah—"

"No," Woon finally replied with a small smile. "No," he repeated in confidence. He sought out Dong Soo's eyes and held the stare, intent on showing his friend the depth of assurance he had for the other. Woon truly believed that of all the things Dong Soo might have been before they met, a bad person was not one of them.

Dong Soo seemed baffled but a little hopeful and tad more settled. Still, he was determined to exhaust his reasoning until Woon either defeated all his fears or yielded to them. He certainly prayed for the former. "But think about it—I show up half-drowned in a river, I have no clue who I am, yet...yet I know all these _things_! It's all _natural_ to me. And these aren't things that a normal village kid would know, and I was just thinking...what if I was someone bad, who did something bad, and someone had done something to me in retaliation?"

Woon cocked his head to the side in confusion. "I don't understand why knowing these other things make you a bad person? It just means you're not a regular country bumpkin. You're probably from a middle class family." Woon may not have liked admitting such, but there was no point in hiding the truth. And although Woon didn't know too much about the intimate lifestyles of the chungin[1] or even higher yangban[2] classes—not that a chonmin[3] had much business with this useless knowledge—he knew that unless you were of chungin class or higher, chances were that you wouldn't touch Confucian scrolls or handle a blade. Woon himself had been an exception, since he always held an uncanny interest for knowledge and Sa Mo didn't do too much to discourage him—something that he was pretty sure would've happened had he been anyone else's ward. Sometimes he did wonder where a butcher managed to learn martial arts, but Sa Mo's stories had always been so full of dramatization that he never really took them seriously.

Dong Soo slumped back with a frustrated huff. "I didn't tell you. Today—when I met Dae Ho and them?—they started asking me all these questions about the capital, because they thought I was from the capital. Of course, Dae Ho told them that they were wrong and that I wasn't, but the thing is..." He leaned in towards Woon and divulged in low tones, "...I could see images of everything they asked me about."

He pulled away and stared idly into the distance, lost in flashes of pictures and colors. "I remember seeing candies of seven different colors. They were in this bowl—a rather ornate bowl. And I've seen the gisaeng[4] walk around. Did you know they actually do wear other women's hair on their head?" He snorted in a moment of humor.

Woon tried not to grin too much, picturing how ridiculous and stupid hair on top of hair must have appeared.

"And I also remember seeing the guards waving their spears around for people to stand back."

Woon nodded, relieved that he was not at all convinced of Dong Soo's fears, and replied, "So? Like I said, we already figured you were probably some chungin boy from the city—"

"—the palace," Dong Soo interrupted darkly.

Woon blinked at Dong Soo. "What?" he asked in disbelief, eyes trained on his friend's expression to see he had misheard. He hadn't considered the possibility of...

"The palace. I think I'm from the palace. I remember catching a glimpse of the guards' _backs_ facing me, and they were waving at people to stand back," Dong Soo confessed. Then his face turned into one of utter dismay. "Don't you see? What if I was a servant? The servants of the palace never leave there, unless by order of whomever they're serving. I must've done something terrible and was banished!" he finished with a small wail, now putting up more of a spectacle than a feasible argument.

Woon patted his back mock-sympathetically and indulged his friend. "I actually think the story about you being some high ranking official's son is more plausible than you being a servant—" he started, trying to calm Dong Soo.

Dong Soo shook his head vehemently. "Why would anyone dare hurt an official's son? And if I _was_ chungin, I'm pretty sure we're not allowed to enter the palace unless we were of age and passed some military exam! So it must mean I was a servant—"

Woon shrugged. "Who knows the weird politics that goes on inside the court. And aren't you jumping a bit far? It might have just been for a visit—"

"—You can't just visit the palace like you're taking a stroll by the river! And you said so before, the clothes I was wearing? What yangban's son or hell, even chungin's son would wear that crap?" Dong Soo shook his head again. "My guess is that I did something to upset one of the officials or yangban, and I barely managed to escape. Maybe my mother or father even sacrificed themselves getting me out." He sniffed a little, blissfully unaware of the gears churning in Woon's mind.

Woon pursed his lips, incorporating Dong Soo's points with his own and refashioning his argument. "Alright. First off, why would a servant know the Confucian Analects and how to wield a sword like you do?" he pointed out. "I mean, if you do know those things _and_ you claim you have seen the inside of the palace...then you've got to be someone important. Your status had to have been at least chungin, if not yangban." He trailed off lightly towards the end. The idea that his friend may have been _that_ high up in the hierarchy did not sit well with him.

Dong Soo shrugged, not seeming to notice Woon's slight discomfort.. "Why do you know the Confucian Analects? And if my father was a guard, then it only stands to reason I know some basic martial arts."

"I like books and am an exception," Woon stated simply. "And secondly, this village is more than two days' ride on horseback from the capital. How could you have drifted this far down?

"Maybe I liked books too," Dong Soo countered childishly, "and I was probably escaping!"

Woon rolled his eyes. "You cannot have floated for more than five miles. There's a shallow spot upriver where you most definitely would have been caught by the rocks and stopped. Also, if you ran all the way down past the shallow spot and then for some reason fell into the water, it wouldn't make sense either. You'd had to have been on the run for three days at least. Judging from your stomach when we found you, that definitely wasn't the case."

Dong Soo frowned, suddenly very lost on the connection between his stomach and him not being a runaway servant. "My stomach?" he echoed while looking down at his stomach, touching it with both hands.

Woon nodded. "You were pretty full, smart one, and there isn't a village near here for miles," he explained while poking the other.

Dong Soo grinned.

"My guess is that you're either just a servant kid who _just happens_ to know some texts and _just happens_ to know some martial arts and you did something to piss off an official or yangban and you miraculously managed to run over one hundred miles in three days or—"

"Or?" Dong Soo prompted in anticipation.

"Or you actually _are_ chungin or yangban. Possibly yangban. Who, for some reason, visited the palace at some time. I have no idea how a son of yangban could end up here, but...," Woon spoke heavily. Upon seeing the distraught expression Dong Soo now sported however, he quickly added on, "but then again...your clothes." Woon smirked; he loved bringing up the absolute trash Dong Soo had been found in—it looked more tattered than the clothes belonging to a beggar who hadn't bathed in years.

Dong Soo rolled his eyes and grinned lightly. It wasn't long before the grin fell away however, and he sat there quietly. "Do you really think I'm an official's son?" he asked delicately. He suddenly felt uncomfortable. He didn't want to be an official's son. He liked it here in this little village. He liked being here...with Woon.

Woon winced, debating between throwing in a joke and saying his true feelings. He went with the latter. "It makes sense, doesn't it?" he said quietly. "If you remember being inside the palace at some point, and you're familiar with the texts and that form of swordplay, you must be the son of someone important. I can't imagine just anybody entering the palace. If you're the son of a yangban, then you might have a decent reason."

"And my rags?" Dong Soo brought up meekly in an attempt to lighten the situation.

Woon scoffed, "Who knows? You know what, forget it. You're just a no good weirdo that showed up in a beggar's suit." They both laughed, dispelling some of the earlier highs and heat, then slowly lapsed into silence again.

"Someone was out to get me," Dong Soo muttered. "I keep getting the feeling that I was being chased. I'm not sure...but I think I catch glimpses of running through a forest and thinking, 'I can't stop. I must live.'"

Woon was quiet.

"I _must_ have done something bad. Or I was a terrible person, so someone wanted revenge on me and—"

"That's not possible," Woon cut in and faced Dong Soo squarely. "You can't be a bad person. You're good, Baek Dong Soo," he assured the other firmly, conviction glimmering strongly and steadily in his eyes.

"How do you know?" Dong Soo grumbled at the other, somewhat taken aback yet calmed by the degree of trust radiating from his friend.

"Because," Woon started, pulling himself back and suddenly avoiding Dong Soo's eyes. "Because you're nice to me," he whispered almost inaudibly.

Dong Soo laughed. "That doesn't really mean anything, you know."

 _'It does to me,’_ Woon thought with an internal grimace.

"Why wouldn't I be nice to you? You saved me. I could still have been a bad person in my previous 'life'," Dong Soo reasoned.

"So you're only nice to me because I saved you?" Woon pretended to ask with an air of offense.

"Nah. You're pretty cool too!" Dong Soo waved a hand. "Well, that is, when you're not busy being a bookworm and when you don't sell me out to Sa Mo, you jerk." He punched Woon's arm playfully, making the other laugh and relax a little.

"Do you think people are looking for me?" Dong Soo pondered out loud as he played with the rope around his boot.

Woon shrugged. "Do you want them to?" he asked back.

Dong Soo parroted the other's actions. "I don't know. It's nice here," he admitted, "but...I do wish I knew who I was. Where I'm from. Who are my parents? Why?" He picked up a pebble off the ground and chucked it across the yard, watching it hit the ground and bounce into some nearby grass.

His companion nodded. Woon could feel a wave of empathy for Dong Soo. These were questions he himself often considered, but never voiced. It hadn't been without struggle—when Woon was younger, he may have asked Sa Mo these questions once or twice. But the null result was ever-unchanging, and Woon soon realized that it was probably for the best and moot.

"I think I have a brother."

"A brother?"

"Yeah," Dong Soo confirmed, "and I loved him a lot." His expression dropped a little as he thought of the word 'hyung' with a pang of warmth and sadness.

"Love," Woon corrected.

"What?"

"Love. You _love_ him a lot. He's still there, right?" Woon asked.

Dong Soo shrugged. "I don't know. Maybe. Probably."

"And I'll bet he's looking for you," Woon smiled. He then stood up and let out a sigh. "I wish I had a brother," he commented wistfully, thinking about a childhood of loneliness. How nice would it be to have someone to stand by you and care for you no matter what.

"You have me," Dong Soo offered amicably. He had stood up and was now facing Woon with a large grin plastered on his face.

Woon froze, staring at Dong Soo with an unreadable expression. He tried to speak, but his voice had simply disappeared completely, trapped by a painful lump in his throat. There were a million things Woon wanted to say in that moment, but they were all flashing by so fast, he couldn't grasp a single one of them and relay his feelings to his friend. He was shocked. For a moment, Woon could have sworn he had started to cry, but when he blinked, his eyes stung with dryness.

It wasn't happiness. It wasn't joy. It wasn't comfort. It wasn't gratitude. It was fifteen years' worth of emotions tunneling through him—fifteen years where loneliness was his most desperate companion.

Dong Soo was beginning to shift uncomfortably under the intense scrutiny. "Ah...what's that serious look for? I was just—it was just a...I mean..." he started rambling and rubbing the back of his head furiously.

A shout from inside the house indicated supper was ready. A chain of clanging sounds followed by a string of curses indicated Sa Mo had knocked over the pots.

Dong Soo shuffled his feet a bit and scratched his head some more. Then, his eyes darted to the door of the house, and he pointed towards it with his thumb, saying, "Should we go in now, then?" Without waiting for the other to reply, he headed back inside. Right before he opened the door, however, Dong Soo paused and whispered softly, "It's ok. I know." He then cleared his throat and started looking everywhere except at Woon. "Ah....I think I hear Sa Mo's dying words now...best go check it out!" he said quickly and went inside.

Woon let the words process in his mind. He smiled and stood there for a few more moments and then followed in.

The house was warm.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [1]chungin - middle class  
> [2]yangban - ruling class/nobles  
> [3] chonmin - lowest social class  
> [4]gisaeng - officially sanctioned female entertainers (many prostitutes)


	4. Chapter 4

"No!"

"Mi So, please? Yah, Woon-ah! Help me out here!"

"I'm busy."

Dong Soo whipped around to find Woon sitting under the tree with his arms folded and eyes closed. "Doing what?" he exclaimed in outrage. A 'whooshing' sound quickly distracted Dong Soo, and he went back to placating the eight-year-old. "Y-Yah...Mi So...let's put that down, ok?" he brought up his hands peacefully, stuck in place. He wasn't able to tread any closer lest he got his arms chopped off, yet he was still attempting to move as close as he could.

The little girl only giggled and shrieked in reply, spinning around and around with her 'shiny new toy'.

"Woon-ah!" Dong Soo whined, clearly at a loss on how to resolve this bloodlessly.

Woon shrugged. "I wasn't the one who desperately wanted to show off my new sword to an eight-year-old," he reminded in an 'I-told-you-so' manner, not budging an inch from his shady spot under the tree.

Dong Soo looked crestfallen. He was risking his life here! He didn't know how much longer of this moronic yet perilous situation he could take! "Please? I'll do some of your chores for you! I'll muck out the pig pen for a whole week! No—whole month!" he bargained desperately.

Woon finally opened his eyes. He raised his eyebrows and said, "Mucking out the pig pen _is_ your job."

Dong Soo's face pinched up in disgust. "What? That's unfair. Why am I stuck with the nastiest job? And I didn't know. Who's doing it now instead of me?" In his defense, nobody _did_ ever designate the job to Dong Soo—not that Dong Soo would have heeded such instructions had anyone done so—and so Dong Soo thought it was still a fair trade.

"I have. Which reminds me—you owe me," Woon stated casually.

Dong Soo gaped. How did he go from making an offer to being in debt? "I—"

"Wheeee! Uh-oh!"

Two heads whipped around just in time to see Dong Soo's new sword spinning through the air and landing with a great 'splash!' into the murky pond.

Dong Soo groaned as loud as Mi So had cheered from the watery spectacle.

"Mi So-ya!" a voice called out from nearby. Soon, Jang Mi appeared hitching up her skirt. She approached them with a tired but radiant smile. Her hair had a few loose ends that the wind playfully picked up, and she hastily tucked them behind her ear.

Mi So snapped her head to her aunt's approaching figure and ran up to her squealing, "Ajumma!"

Jang Mi bent down and enveloped her in a hug, then quickly set about dusting off her clothes and picking grass out of her hair. "What have you been up to, you little trouble-maker? Have you been a good girl for Dong Soo and Woon? Or were you naughty today?" she interrogated the little girl good-naturedly.

Dong Soo opened his mouth to tell older woman that no, Mi So had _not_ been a good girl today, but Mi So cut him off before he could get a word in. "Mi So was good for Woon-oppa!" she blurted out, sending a very indiscreet glance in Woon's direction.

Jang Mi hid a smile while Dong Soo rolled his eyes—he didn't miss the fact that his name went completely unmentioned. It was no secret the little girl harbored an enormous crush on Woon, who seemed formidably ignorant of the matter. The boy in question gave Mi So a small smile, causing the latter to turn as red as a peach and scurry away on the path leading back to the village.

Jang Mi stood up with a bit of effort and patted her skirt. She turned to Woon and Dong Soo and said, "Thank you for looking after Mi So. I'll be taking her off your hands now—she must have been a handful."

"Not at all, Ajumma," Woon replied politely. "Mi So is a good girl and lots of fun to have around."

Jang Mi chuckled, the corners of her eyes crinkling warmly. "Oh you silly child, look at how good you've gotten at sweet-talking," she said while winking at the two boys. "Well I really ought to go find that girl before she causes more trouble. Don't stay out too late, you two!" she reminded before leaving.

"' _Mi So is a good girl and lots of fun to have around'_!" Dong Soo mocked in a false pitch. He rolled his eyes. "Of course she was—you didn't do a thing, chincha!"

Woon ignored the comment and stood up, dusting off his pants. "We should probably rescue your sword before it rusts. I don't think you want to explain to Sa Mo how you managed to ruin your sword after just two days of having it," he suggested, walking over to the pond.

Dong Soo came up behind him and peered over his shoulder, grimacing. The water was murky brown and practically opaque with sediment and dirt. "Uwaah...look at that...do you think it's possible to get the sword without touching the water?" he asked hopefully, albeit a tad too optimistically. He prepared his best sheepish expression for Woon, to which Woon shot down.

Woon shook his head more to himself than as a reply to his friend's question and braced himself, stepping into the water. It wasn't too cold, as it was a shallow pond where the water only came up to his knee at its deepest parts. He bent down and began to feel around the area where the sword seemed to have fallen.

Suddenly, the sound of shouting and laughing could be heard, and Woon lifted his head to see a group of children far away walking towards them. They didn't seem to notice him and Dong Soo yet, but Dong Soo noticed them and began shouting, "Yah! Dae Ho! Chul Moo! Over here!" He waved his arms up and down excitedly and ran towards them, sprinting swiftly across the grass. His actions garnered a few of the kids' attentions.

"Yah Baek Dong Soo! How's it going?" Dae Ho greeted from far away, hollering over the wind, "We're going to Chung Hee's house to see the new puppies his dog just had! Wanna come?" He pointed towards the village and made a gesture for Dong Soo to join them.

"Yeah! Sure! Hold on a second!" Dong Soo yelled before doubling back and jogging back to Woon. "Yah Woon-ah. Wanna go see the new puppies? I bet they're cute! You like cute things, right?" He was thrumming with energy, excited at the prospect of little fluffy creatures—he'd never seen one before!

Woon shifted uncomfortably. "It's ok. I'm...allergic to newborn puppies. It's probably best for me not to go," he lied and resumed his search for the sword, working his way through the swirling mass of dirty pond water. He waved his hands around in the water more as a show now, but...did he just touch something smooth?

Dong Soo's smile fell. "Oh..." he said, evidently disappointed. The idea of his best friend joining with him to hang out with his new friends had been a superbly exhilarating one. He didn't count on Woon saying no. "Oh...well...do you think you can get my sword for me, then?" he asked.

Woon frowned and his hands curled around the blade of the sword still in the water. An ugly feeling manifested itself inside him but he managed to filter the contempt out of his voice, maintaining a neutral tone. "Why? Where are you going?"

"To see the puppies, of course! They're going right now!" Dong Soo grinned, nudging his chin towards the group and already slightly skipping sideways in that direction.

A sense of bitterness washed over Woon. "Well, I don't know exactly where the sword is. You should help me and go later," he stated, not completely lying since it hadn't quite registered in his mind that he already found it.

"Yah Dong Soo!" Dae Ho's voice came cutting across more clearly this time. The group of children had now stopped about ten meters away from Dong Soo and Woon.

Dong Soo shook his head vehemently. "I have to go now—can't keep them waiting! I'll make it up to you?" Dong Soo offered cutely with a placating grin.

This ended up having the opposite effect than originally intended, as Woon suddenly grew cold and unresponsive. He straightened up slowly, bringing Dong Soo's sword out of the water.

"You found it!" Dong Soo cried out with relief. "Awesome! Hey can you bring—"

"Find it yourself," Woon bit out harshly and tossed the sword back into the pond—far away from where he stood.

Dong Soo's face donned an expression of shock before contorting in anger. "What was that for?" he hissed, closing the gap between him and Woon and not wanting to startle his other friends. "If you found it already then why'd you toss it back?" He was flooded with frustration and confusion—frustration at Woon's actions and suddenly cold attitude and confusion as to what brought them on.

Woon ignored him and climbed out of the pond, water droplets dripping off of his feet and hands as he stomped off in the direction opposite of Dong Soo and Dae Ho's gang. He held his head stiffly forward, refusing to glance back.

"Woon-ah!" he could hear Dong Soo shouting after him, but was intent on ignoring the other. Part of him knew it was an incredibly childish thing to do and that his actions were completely uncalled for, but he didn't care. After he managed to walk out of visible distance around a grove of trees, he ran off with Dong Soo's voice being smothered by the wind.

* * *

 

"Waah...they're so tiny!"

"Can I hold one, please?"

"Do they have names yet?"

Chung Hee laughed. "One at a time, guys! One at a time!" he appealed to the bunch of kids peering curiously at the litter of newborn puppies. Carefully holding up one of the puppies with one hand supporting the tiny creature, he put some distance between himself and the table so that all the kids could get a better look at the newborn.

The door creaked open, diverting the attention of the mass for a brief second. "Sorry guys, I'm back now." Dong Soo grinned apologetically, approaching the group in barely concealed anticipation. "Let me see them too! Widen up the circle, guys!" he pleaded and tried to reach into the middle.

When he did manage to get through—Dong Soo threw out a careless apology to younger boy that nearly fell—Chung Hee turned to him and instructed, "Here, hold her like this," and carefully deposited the puppy in Dong Soo's awaiting hands. The circle now swarmed in on Dong Soo, myriads of 'ooh's and 'ah's rising up and numerous little fingers pointing and hesitantly touching the puppy.

Dong Soo's eyes widened comically in astonishment and he let out a breathy 'uwah!' Too scared to move his hands in case he dropped the puppy, he settled with turning his head in five different directions and angles to get a better look at the animal. "I thought puppies had fur?" he inquired curiously.

Chung Hee laughed, another puppy already in hand. "Yeah, those will grow in later. You were bald as a baby too, you know?" he pointed out humorously.

Dong Soo glanced up at his huge mop of messy bangs. "Huh...can't imagine that," he commented in surprise, instigating a round of laughter from the others.

"I can't imagine Dong Soo without hair either," Jin Joo, Chung Hee's younger sister, teased. She was also cupping a small puppy and nuzzled it with her nose, which Dong Soo didn't think the puppy would have appreciated had it been old and aware enough.

"Well I can imagine you without yours," Dong Soo sneered animatedly at the younger girl, causing her cheeks to ripen with anger and everyone else to break out in laughter.

When the laughter lessened and Jin Joo had ceased her fit—she seemed to have a peculiar habit of stomping down her right foot and throwing her arms down by her side repeatedly when annoyed, Dae Ho piped up, "So what were you doing at the pond getting all wet earlier?"

Dong Soo scratched his head abashedly, "Ah...I dropped something in there and had to get it out. Trust me, Sa Mo already gave me a harsh lecture for it!" he humored, recalling the butcher chastising him about how a sword is not a toy and shouldn't be used to show off to others.

The others snickered at his words and commented about how it was 'just like him'. Dong Soo begged to differ—he was very responsible and handled all matters very orderly. It was just that some things weren't worth _all_ his sensible responsible...ness...and so...He joined in with the laughter.

"What were you doing there with _Woon_?" one of the other boys asked warily and instantly, a blanket of hush fell over the room.

Dong Soo, who was still trailing off on his laughter, slowly dropped his grin when he saw how quiet the room had become. "What?" he asked around, bewildered. He was puzzled by the abrupt shift in mood at the mention of Woon. "He's my best friend; I was just hanging out with him. We had to babysit Mi So. You know—the little bratty eight-year-old?" he tried to shrug off casually. When the other kids didn't reply and instead shuffled around awkwardly, he narrowed his eyes in suspicion. "Why? What do you guys have against my friend?" he demanded, emphasizing the word 'friend'.

Dae Ho was expressionless. For once, it was Chul Moo, a short and scrawny of fourteen, who first spoke up, "It's just that...he's so quiet and has this strange look all the time, and—"

"—and you know what they say about him!" another boy cut in, receiving a few scattered nods around the circle. There were a few hums and murmurs of assent, though it was difficult to discern the sources.

Dong Soo turned slowly on the boy and took a deep breath, straightening up and cocking his brows. "Say what?" he demanded in a warning tone. Was this how they treated his friend? Was this why Woon didn't ever seem to hang out with others and why Woon constantly rejected his suggestions to join the group? The thought that his new friends were the ones to hurt Woon churned violently in his stomach and he himself felt upset from the notion.

The boy gulped. "Well—"

"My parents always said it was bad luck to hang around him," Chul Moo finished bravely, or stupidly. Dong Soo flickered his gaze over to Chul Moo, who seemed to cower slightly under the weight of Dong Soo's glare. "They say he's not a good kid, and that I would have bad things happening to me if I continued to hang around him."

"That's stupid," Dong Soo spat, startling Chul Moo and causing him to recoil minutely. "Woon-ah is really nice and a lot of fun and a great friend!" he defended his absent companion, offended by the stuff the others were saying. He had to remind himself that he was still holding an innocent and defenseless puppy in his hands, and that choking the small thing would not yield pleasantries.

"That's not all," Chul Moo continued, now building up some confidence. "That first summer—you guys remember that first summer Woon was here?" he asked around the circle. The others nodded and confirmed. Those who didn't or weren't sure they did tossed in affirmative responses anyways. "Something happened," he explained to Dong Soo, who was still riled, "and then later there was that rumor about him—"

"Rumors are stupid," Dong Soo scoffed.

Chul Moo shook his head, frowning. "Hear me out—apparently there was this prophecy about him by some female shaman, and she had said—"

"No, I heard it was carved on some rocks that he was left by as a child. The butcher found him and took him in anyways!" another voice threw in.

"My abeoji told me that the butcher was chopping up the pork the day after he took in Woon, and the blood that seeped from the pigs spelled out—"

"That's all stupid nonsense!" Dong Soo shouted, starting to get rather hurt at the others' insistence that Woon was a bad person. So this is why...this is why his friend was always alone...He dropped his gaze down to the puppy still in his hands, completely unperturbed by the ruckus all around it and dozing away innocently. I bet Woon really loves newborn puppies, he thought regretfully.

Dae Ho stepped in and raised a placating hand. "Hey now guys, let's just forget about all those stories and help with the puppies, yeah? They probably need feeding, so let's put them back next to their mother," he distracted easily, appearing satisfied when the attentions of the kids shifted back to the puppies.

He then turned to Dong Soo and pulled him aside, laying a comforting hand on his shoulder. "Forget the stuff they said," he said, consoling the other boy, "but just know that, well, our parents really have it against him. I'm sure it's stupid, but hey—our parents would give us a good spanking and lecture if we said and did otherwise. Parents," he scoffed with a roll of his eye. "It's just best to listen to them, even if they worry too much. You understand, right?"

 _'No,'_ Dong Soo thought, realizing with an itch of discomfort that he never told his friends about his missing memories. "Yeah," he whispered tiredly, not wanting to look at Dae Ho. The latter grinned and patted him on the shoulder before leaving to help out with the puppies.

 _'"I'm sure it's stupid",'_ Dong Soo repeated what the other had said in his head and felt twinge of bitterness. ' _If it was stupid_ , _why don't you ignore them?_ ' he thought, recalling Woon's lonely expression when his friend saw the group of kids playing and didn't think anyone could see him.

A very small whine sounded from his hands, and he smiled down at the puppy. 

* * *

"Give me your hand," Sa Mo ordered gruffly but gently, holding out piece of cloth. Woon obeyed, holding out his right hand and letting his guardian carefully wrap up his injury. "Chincha...two days in and you've already managed to hurt yourself. You do realize the sword has a hilt for a reason?" Sa Mo questioned rhetorically. "And here I was so sure it'd be Dong Soo who hurt himself first," he mumbled, chuckling a little. "Ah, there we go. All done, kid. Aigoo," he said, smacking his thighs and standing up.

"Thanks," Woon muttered, slowly bringing down his hand to let it rest in his lap.

Sa Mo watched Woon discreetly out of the corner of his eye as he wiped his hand on an idle rag. "Is there something you wanted to talk about?" he offered casually, voice betraying his intentions all too clearly.

"No," the boy stated firmly, resolving to stare emptily at a dirty speck on the table.

"Something about you and Dong Soo?" he encouraged, remembering how Dong Soo had stalked by unhappily two hours back, dropped off his sword and completely ignored Sa Mo when he gave the other boy a stern lecture about handling a sword—he had found out from a jumping Mi So that the other boy had been showing off. When he asked where Woon was, the boy shifted uncomfortably and excused himself. Then two hours later, Woon comes dragging himself through the door, hand all red with blood soaking through the flimsy piece of cloth the boy had wrapped around his hand.

"...No," the boy denied softer and with less conviction this time.

Sa Mo nodded and pretended to turn around to go about his own business. He wasn't sure if it would work, but he knew for certain that Woon would clamp up entirely if he pushed. If he tentatively reached out and offered a door rather than a wall...He wasn't surprised when, a few seconds later, Woon spoke up. "Actually..." he trailed off, biting his lip.

Sa Mo faced him. "Actually...?" he repeated, encouraging the boy to go on. Woon looked the other way.

Sa Mo sighed. "Woon-ah," he began, walking over to stand behind him and placing a comforting hand on the boy's shoulder. "Whatever it is that happened between the two of you, it'll be fine," he assured the child. "The relationship the two of you have is special. Regardless of who he used to be, you're his best friend now, and that's something that group of kids can't take away from you," he went on to say. He knew Woon wasn't the type of kid to really let out his feelings, so he decided not to say any more than that. _'Let the kid take the reign—I've had my say.'_

Woon relaxed a little, the lines between his eyebrows disappearing a tad. "I did something bad," he admitted with a bit of guilt and regret.

Sa Mo nodded. "We all do sometimes," he said. "Talk to him, Woon. He's your friend. Don't let that go over something stupid," he advised and went into the meat room, leaving the boy to his thoughts.

* * *

 Woon sighed, closing his copy of the Confucian Analects and laying it down on his chest. He was currently lying on his straw bed, staring blankly at the rafters above. After tossing Dong Soo's sword back into the pond, he had gone off and wandered the fields to cool his temper and to just think. At first he felt satisfied in his actions. He squashed the part of his thought that knew what he had done was petty and childish. And he was fine.

Soon, however, he began to feel remorse for what he did. He hadn't even noticed he had been clenching his hand the entire time and when he finally relaxed, he noticed his hand was bleeding. He tore off a part of his sleeve and distractedly wrapped it up.

He had wandered around for about another hour and a half before returning back to the house, where Sa Mo promptly scolded him for not being careful and took care of his mishap.

He turned on his side, clutching his book to his chest and curling up halfway. He was thankful that the other hadn't pressed him for details on what happened. He felt ashamed for the way he had reacted, and a tinge of fear and insecurity reverberated through him when he recalled his friend's angry face. He didn't want the other to be angry at him, he thought sadly. But he just couldn't help it in that moment. Chucking the sword aside felt so good right then—or so he remembered thinking. To be honest, he couldn't even recall any good feeling he actually got out of his actions—which made him curl up on his side even more.

"Yah...sorry Dong Soo-ya...about earlier," he tried, rolling the apology around on his tongue unsatisfactorily. He sighed and started again, "Sorry about your sword." He shook his head, getting some straw into his hair.

He straightened out again onto his back. "I'm an idiot, Dong Soo-ya. Sorry for throwing your sword back into the water. Look, I even got cut doing so. See how stupid it was? Or not," he mumbled, frowning again at the sound of it.

He plopped his book on his stomach and closed his eyes, letting his two arms fall to his side, spread out. "How were the puppies? Were they cute? You remember the sword incident—?" Woon broke off. "Of course he remembers, you idiot. It was only this afternoon," he mumbled to himself.

He rested his forearms on his eyes. "I'm sorry, Dong Soo-ya. I wish I didn't throw your sword in the pond earlier. I'm stupid. Please don't hate me," he whispered the last part quietly, drawing in a somewhat shaky breath.

"You idiot. Why would I hate you?"

Woon snapped his eyes open and shot straight up and—BANG!

"Ow!"

"Ah chincha!" both boys exclaimed simultaneously.

Woon sat there rubbing his head while Dong Soo squatted behind him nursing his own nose.

"Aish...chincha...I think I'm bleeding. I-I really think I'm bleeding—" Dong Soo stuttered, still holding onto his nose and looking up.

Woon turned around to face the other boy and got on his knees to look at the other's nose. "What, let me see," he told the other, gently prying Dong Soo's hands away from the latter's face. He froze.

"What? Is my nose broken? Did you break my nose with your hard head? Woon-ah!" Dong Soo shouted frantically, still stuck in the same ridiculous squatting position with his nose tilted high in the air. Woon started laughing. "What? Is that a no, then?" he demanded, eyes darting around in all directions in panic.

Woon nodded, grinning. "Yeah...it's a no. Your nose is as formidable as ever," he teased.

Dong Soo let out a small huff and fell on his bottom, dropping his head and rubbing the back of his neck tenderly. "It hurt a lot," he whined and touched his nose a few more times to ascertain that there was no red stuff spewing out of it.

Woon suddenly felt quiet. He had forgotten what he was doing before that little ruckus and remembering it now brought back all the awkwardness. He shifted a bit and cleared his throat, not looking at his friend. "Yah...Dong Soo-ya..." he began.

Dong Soo waved him off, clearly knowing where he was headed. "It's fine. I heard you the first twenty times you tried to say it." He grinned, laughing a little at the blood leaving Woon's face. "I think I got your meaning. I mean, I've had some time to cool off and all. And really, I feel like I should say sorry too—"

"Why do you need to say sorry? I was the one who—" Woon countered, puzzled.

"I shouldn't have just dropped you like that. And you even got hurt getting my sword. You were right to be angry," Dong Soo admitted. And the way his friends treated Woon, it was no wonder the boy became angry.

Woon shook his head. "It wasn't—"

"Do you forgive me?" Dong Soo interrupted.

"You don't need my—"

"Do you forgive me?" Dong Soo repeated.

"That doesn't matter. You don't—"

" _Do you forgive me?_ " Dong Soo asked one more time, demanding an answer.

"Yes, but I said—"

"Then we're good!" He beamed from ear to ear. "I forgive you, you forgive me...let's move onto more important matters!" Dong Soo reasoned simply.

"But—" Woon was suddenly cut off by a barely audible mewl. He frowned suspiciously. "What was that?" he asked.

Dong Soo grinned. "Like I said—more important matters," he replied, reaching into the part of his tunic he had been—clutching since earlier?—and brought out a hairless puppy.

Woon stared at the puppy in awe, carefully reaching out to take hold of it when Dong Soo gently placed it in his hands. "Dong Soo...is this—? What's its name? Is it a boy or a girl? Are we keeping it?" he bombarded with questions.

"Whoa, whoa! Slow down! It's a girl, I think. Yes, we get to keep it—Sa Mo doesn't get a say so. And you get to name her," Dong Soo answered his questions one at a time with a smile.

Woon still couldn't stop starting at the puppy with wonder, amazed by how such a small life could fit in the palm of his hand. Then suddenly he shot Dong Soo a glare. "Does this mean you've been half suffocating her this entire time?" he accused.

"Hey! Of course not! She could breathe through my tunic, you know?" Dong Soo defended himself with a huff.

"Poor thing had to smell your terrible odor," Woon commented airily, turning his attention back to the puppy.

Dong Soo rolled his eyes, but smiled as he watched his friend stroke the puppy with one finger. After a few moments of sitting there, he spoke up again. "You lied," he half sung.

"Hmm?" Woon responded distractedly.

"You said you were allergic to puppies," Dong Soo stated, his lips curled into a half-smile. The younger boy looked up at him and then, recalling his excuse from earlier, turned away.

"Oh...how'd you know?" Woon asked, a little embarrassed at being caught.

"I just do," Dong Soo shrugged. "You're not a very good liar, did you know? At least, not around me, you aren't," he noted, a little proud that he had one-upped Woon for once.

Woon pouted almost imperceptibly. "Like you're any better," he countered.

Dong Soo scoffed. "It's a good thing," he mumbled. It was better to let your true feelings out rather than keeping them all bottled up—Dong Soo was sure of that. And although Woon had a tendency to be more introverted and stoic—especially around others—than Dong Soo, he hoped that that would eventually change.

They lapsed into silence.

A few minutes later, Woon inquired after her name. "So what should we name her?"

The other boy shrugged. "Anything you like," he said. "Just—well, don't name her 'Dong Soo', yeah? That'd be confusing. And that name's currently taken," he reminded, pointing to himself.

Woon let out a small laugh. "As if anyone would want to be named after you," he scoffed lightly.

"Yah—I'm sure parents all across Joseon would want to name their kid after me, Baek Dong Soo—you just wait! My name's too good to be wasted on a dog...well...I guess it's a little too late for that...I still can't believe you named me after your old dog. Hey—how about Dong Woon?" he lit up.

"..."

"What?"

"You're joking, right?" Woon asked disbelievingly, torn between being amused and being horrified. "Is that even a real name?"

Dong Soo looked offended. "Sounds like one. I'm sure someone out there is named Dong Woon, and now you've offended him by claiming his name doesn't exist! Well...I thought it was a good idea." He paced casually around the room while explaining his reasoning. "I mean, since we're raising her, doesn't that sort of make her our daughter?" he grinned.

Woon stared at him, frowning. "You're a guy and I'm a guy," he objected logically. "Besides," he continued, avoiding Dong Soo's eyes and quieting a little at the embarrassing topic, "it's not like we're married or anything..."

Dong Soo exhaled loudly. "Woon-ah, Woon-ah, Woon-ah...minor details. But if you really want to—you can be the mother. There—you're girly enough," he resolved as he poked Woon in the chest.

"Dong Woon is still a dumb name—" He ignored the protest Dong Soo made on behalf of all the 'Dong Woon's in Joseon. "—Why does your name come first anyways?" Woon ignored the jibe at his looks with a roll of his eyes.

"Because I'm cooler, obviously. And I'm stronger! I can best you at a swordfight any day!" he stood up and struck a pose.

Woon kicked the back of Dong Soo's knees, causing him to collapse onto the ground. "You were saying?" he asked innocently. Dong Soo rubbed his butt and stuck out his tongue.

"Sanai," Dong Soo said with a nod after a moment.

"What?"

"We should call her 'Sanai'," he repeated while reaching over to Woon's lap to pet the puppy. "Hey there, Sanai, do you like your new home? Yes you do, Sanai, yes you do," he cooed at the tiny creature, stroking it with one finger.

"You can't name her 'hairless'—yah Baek Dong Soo!" Woon protested with a miffed expression.

The other boy shrugged and drew back defensively. "She's hairless! What else do I name her? You didn't like any of my other suggestions!" he argued for himself, gesturing wildly with his arms.

"You only had one other suggestion, and it was terrible. And she's a newborn. Her hair will grow in later," Woon explained.

Dong Soo folded his arms in a fine display of petulance. "Well too late. Sanai likes her name. Don't you, Sanai?" he asked the newborn puppy, receiving a quiet whine in response. The grin on his face spread even farther, and Woon looked shocked.

"See? She likes it. Welcome to your new family, Sanai."

 


	5. Chapter 5

The thudding of wood against wood could be heard coming from the rear of the house. Sa Mo strained his ears and carefully noted the pattern of the sounds, which were accompanied by the occasional yell and broken up by a much-too-frequent clatter.

A thrust. 

A parry.

Sa Mo nodded to himself with a deep rumbling noise of satisfaction. The boys had practiced nearly every day, and the results of their efforts were at last beginning to bear fruit. In their early duels, Dong Soo appeared to maintain an upper hand, seemingly well versed in the way of the sword and easily defeating Woon anytime they got to sparring. However, the younger boy possessed a rather nasty and secret streak of competitiveness that had a tendency to rear its ugly head when Dong Soo stepped up to the challenge. But even without the edge of covert aggression, Woon was a natural with the sword, maneuvering it like it was another limb that he'd been born with, and soon caught up to the other boy in terms of ability. Now it actually seemed the scales had flipped—more often than not, Woon was able to disarm Dong Soo, leaving the latter grumbling unhappily and whining loudly.

Nevertheless, it was evident that both boys had improved tremendously and were now able to hold their own in a proper swordfight. Sa Mo would have bet his prized knife that if the palace's royal guards had them surrounded, the two of them would draw a good hard ten minutes or so of sweat from those men before submission.

Parry.

Slash.

Block. Recover. Attack.

Parry. Disengage.

It was a belligerent and exuberating melody that held its fill of crescendos and falls, each inter-stepping with the other and never yielding a moment's rest. The rhythm picked up again and advanced ferociously, the merciless succession of a one-way attack culminating beautifully as the echo of wood clattering onto the dusty ground reached Sa Mo's ears.

A smirk crawled over his lips—it seemed Woon won again. Cue Dong Soo's whining and variations of howling and—

Someone knocked thrice on the front door. Sa Mo quirked a bushy brow, granting it refuge in the bandana around his forehead and listing off potential visitors in his mind. Jang Mi? An image of the smiling young woman flickered in his mind and a flash of panic took him. He hastily wiped his hands on a dirty rag nearby and—after a second of staring down the rag in contemplation—dabbed his face with it. He wrinkled his face at the odor and promptly wiped his face again with his sleeve. "Ah! Just a moment!" he hollered when the knocking repeated, stumbling over to the front door and yanking it open, regaining his composure only in the one second turn of finding his feet again and raising the latch. Relief warred with disappointment in his chest when he realized the visitor was neither smiling nor female—not Jang Mi. 

It was one of the boys who was part of Dae Ho's little gang.

"What do you want, kid?" he asked rather gruffly, disappointment falling over him heavily in the end and sparking a nerve that manifested in his eye as a twitch. The corner of his mouth curled up unpleasantly, and he released an intimidating harrumph.

The child deserved some props for not responding with immediate flight, the only hint of his nervousness being the way his cheeks suddenly paled a few shades. When he pulled together his thoughts and voice, it was slow but not unsteady. "Is...Is Dong Soo in? We're gonna go play tag and we were just wondering if he wanted to join." His eyes flickered up briefly to Sa Mo's dark and intense ones, and the boy hurriedly jerked his head away and broke the unintentional eye contact.

Sa Mo grunted after a silent moment of judgment and pushed the door open lazily with one arm, holding it just high enough for the boy to duck under. "Through there," he nudged in the direction of the backyard with his chin. "They're out back," he added. 

The boy delivered a sharp nod while muttering some form of gratitude and hastily made his way to the backyard. Annoyed that he had been called upon to fetch Dong Soo like some sort of errand boy, Kwan vowed to make this quick—he'd extend the invitation, receive a response and leave. Upon reaching the back door and pushing it open however, he had barely a second to catch his jaw before it fell open. There, in the middle of the weed-infested, equipment-littered mess of a yard, sat Dong Soo on top of Woon in the middle of what appeared to be a scuffle. Both had turned to look at him, frozen in surprise. The shorter boy—Dong Soo—was sitting heavily on the other boy's stomach, one hand grabbing hold of the latter's wrist and the other hand clutching a boot. Meanwhile, Woon had his head craning slightly off the ground and met Kwan's eyes intriguingly.

Kwan fought the blush that was willing its way up to his cheeks thanks to the abrupt deluge of scrutiny. Dong Soo's straightforward, no-sense-for-decency stare didn't irk him as much as Yeo Woon's reserved and calculating—judging—gaze did. It was the first time he had ever been in such close proximity with the notorious 'demon child' of their village and with such individual audience.

"Yah, Kwan!" Dong Soo chirped happily from his unmoving position, an unhindered grin occupying half his face. Woon took a second to shoot a glare at the happy-go-lucky boy while trying to pull free to no avail. He did manage to squeeze in a satisfying smack in with free hand though, effectively knocking the smile off of Dong Soo's face and replacing it with a pout.

"Um," Kwan repeated dumbly, momentarily forgetting what to say. Not that it mattered, considering the way the two were reabsorbed in their own conflict and ignored him outright. Dong Soo finally released Woon, hurriedly heaving himself off of the latter and standing up lest the other boy attempt retaliation. He stumbled and hopped around a bit as he tried to put his boot back on and tie it up. Woon followed suit, getting up and dusting off his pants. Another glare or two were tossed Dong Soo's way, but the boy swatted them aside and walked up to Kwan, grinning apologetically. 

"Sorry about that. Um...I was trying to get Woon-ah to eat my boot 'cause..." He trailed off uncertainly. "Eh...I forgot..." Dong Soo rubbed his head sheepishly, appearing somewhat embarrassed, though whether by his inability to remember or by the reason that he didn't actually want to divulge, Kwan had no clue. "But yeah! What's up?" He beamed up at Kwan, refocusing his entire attention on the visitor.

Kwan resisted the sneer that threatened to unearth itself on his lips and swallowed thickly, scowling while he tried to remember what he had come for. "Um...Dae Ho and the others are gonna go play tag. Did you wanna join?" he finally managed to ask, silently congratulating himself for accomplishing the task. Damn Dae Ho for making him fetch Dong Soo—he was positive the butcher hated him for some unknown reason, looking ready to castrate him on a whim, and he had to interact with Yeo Woon on a personal level—they made eye contact! Wasn't that a death sentence? Why did they have to include Dong Soo anyways? They played tag just fine without him...A bitter taste trickled into his mouth. He was one of the few kids who found Dong Soo's new presence teetering more towards undesirable. 

Dong Soo pursed his lips, troubled, and Kwan caught the discreet glance he sent Woon, who was a few feet away behind him. A look of apprehension crossed Kwan's features as he grew uncomfortable at the interaction between the two. The icy look Woon was now channeling him sent shudders up his spine, though he did his best not to show.

"Hold on a sec—" Dong Soo told Kwan and moved back next to Woon, conversing with him in hushed tones. Kwan couldn't really make out what they were saying. At first, Dong Soo didn't seem too happy, worry stitching up half his face, and was sort of wringing his hands subconsciously. He saw the both of them glance at him, and he quickly looked away. When he looked back, Woon was smiling and shaking his head. Kwan had never seen the other boy smile, and it actually took him by quite the surprise. The other boy had a nice smile, Kwan thought idly, forgetting momentarily just who the subject of that admiring thought was. When he did realize, it made him a tad uncomfortable, but for a second, he just couldn't associate the rumors about Woon with the boy in front of him. If it was a charming smile or a winning smile or a wily smile or a playful smile, he would not have forgotten the association between Woon and the stories. But it was a simple smile, a happy smile.

Dong Soo seemed pleasantly surprised by Woon's reaction, nervousness now abating a little. He gestured again to Kwan—or just his general direction—and raised his eyebrows in confirmation of something. Hesitation gripped Woon, his smile faltering a tad and waning slightly. But then he nodded with his eyes closed and when he opened them again, smiled with even more vigor and brilliance. He then nudged towards the door with his head, eyes flickering from the door back to Dong Soo and gesturing for him to go.

Dong Soo started walking backwards towards Kwan and still facing Woon. Kwan couldn't see Dong Soo's face now, but he could make out the other pointing at himself and then over his shoulder towards the door. Woon shook his head with an exasperated smile and shouted, "Just go already!"

Then, Dong Soo turned around with a full grin plastered on his face. He walked up to Kwan and slung an arm around the other's shoulders. "Alright, let's go!" he exclaimed, and guided him through the door and out of the backyard before Kwan could throw another glance in Woon's direction.

* * *

The days grew colder and colder until the first flakes of velvety snow drifted down upon the cozy village, enveloping it in a sheet of pristine white and blanketing it with somnolence. It had been night when the wintry flowers first fell, much to the disappointment of all the village children. But it was certainly a sight to behold upon waking up the next day to find dirt and grime purified with white blossoms. The next day also saw a series of snowball fights, much to the chagrin of the parents.

Still, the majority of hours was spent—for children or adults—huddled up indoors and surrounding a nice warm fire. The cold wasn't as benevolent as it appeared, nor was it as loving as it was charming—the fluffy snow seemed gentle and benign, but a slight shift in the winds caused it to whirl up in a fury, stinging the skin like a swarm of poisonous darts. The lethargy followed by the initial pin-pricking sensations of the more tempered winds discouraged the inhabitants of the village to remain outdoors for too long.

Dong Soo quickly found that winter was not his favorite season. While the first sight of snow brought on a feeling of exhilaration and intrigue, the endless confinement indoors brought on a feeling of boredom and restlessness. He wasn't sure how many more rounds of sticks or gonggi he could play with the other children. And the one time they tried betting some spare coins, they were caught by one of the children's parents and reprimanded harshly. Winter, he learned, really was a harsh season and it was during this time that he began to realize how gruesome and toiling the life of a villager really was. The sparse grains they had managed to reserve during the warmer days had Dong Soo complaining back when they were storing them. But now that winter arrived, Death and Sleep as her knights, Dong Soo wished they had done more. 

Luckily, there was a whole stash of kimchi readily available for this season. While the boy undoubtedly would have preferred relishing the flavor of some warm substance in his mouth rather than the ice cold taste of kimchi, it was refreshing enough to have vegetables on hand in a season that killed all greenery.

Still, more often than not, Dong Soo went to bed with a rumble of hunger in his stomach. It was better than outright starving, though. 

Sometimes he spent the day indoors with Woon and Sanai, who also grew restless and antsy at being cooped up all day inside. Unfortunately for Dong Soo, Woon seemed completely fine with being holed up indoors while Dong Soo was going mad with cabin fever. The quiet boy spent his hours doing chores and reading books—where he got more books, Dong Soo didn't know. Honestly—not even the King studied his texts as religiously as Woon did, Dong Soo bet.

So when he did spend the day at home, it was often playing with their puppy. Sanai had now grown into a rather playful yet vicious little thing. She seemed to play favorites and tended to lay down in Woon's lap while snapping at Dong Soo's hands.

Dong Soo commented on this one day, saying with mock hurt at how their 'daughter' had no paternal loyalty whatsoever, and woe was he who grew old with no love from his child. This only earned him a scratch on the arm by Sanai—in her defense, he had been grabbing onto her rather uncomfortably and shaking her while he lamented this—and an eye roll from Woon.

And then they fell back into their boring routine. 

Sometimes Dong Soo walked outside just to get some fresh air; though most of the times, doing the proper chores was enough cold and air for a day. He tried asking Woon a few times if the latter wanted to go on an adventure with him down to the pond and see if they could slide on it. The first time, Woon shook his head. The second time, he pursed his lips, thought for a second and then said no. The third and last time, Woon didn't answer for a long time, but finally gave in with a smile.

So they bundled up and came up with a thousand reasons to convince Sa Mo into letting them go. For some reason that Dong Soo could not fathom, Sa Mo had been eyeing Woon the entire time they were pleading their case. He wondered if he had missed something, but if he did, he had no idea what it was. On their way out the door while Dong Soo was strapping on the snow-walkers to his boots, he caught Sa Mo talking to Woon and Woon shaking his head. His friend shrugged and made a flippant gesture with his arms. Sa Mo looked dissatisfied, but waved him off anyways, warning them to return within two hours' time. The two then set off on their adventure.

They arrived at the little frozen pond that Dong Soo's sword had fallen into a couple of months ago. The pond had frozen over solid, and the two boys tentatively stuck their feet onto the ice. After ensuring that the ice was thick enough that they wouldn't have the unpleasant experience of falling through, all inhibitions were off and they shrieked excitedly at the fantastic playground. 

They skated back and forth on the little piece of icy pond for what seemed like hours. On multiple occasions, the boys fell on their bottoms, each laughing at the other and themselves when they did. They spun around in circles and walked backwards. They carved out characters with sticks on the ice and slid rocks around with their sticks, trying to push as many pebbles as they could into each other's territories. They stood in the center of the pond and pushed against each other, grinning as they both reached their respective edges of the pond.

It was only when the sun began to set, and the little hint of warmth began to disappear, that they headed back to the warm cozy comfort of their home. Having been out way past Sa Mo's stipulations, they heaved twin sighs of relief when they returned home to an empty house.

A day later, Dong Soo found out why Woon was so hesitant and Sa Mo so reluctant to let Woon out of the house.

The other boy came down with a fever—a mild one, but a fever nonetheless. The decade for the plagues had passed, and the flu wasn't as common in smaller villages as it was in the capitol and other big cities, so Woon's life was never in much danger. Sa Mo had sat down next to the sick boy with a large bowl of boiled water, a rag and a ready-made lecture. He ranted half out of anger and half out of worry. There were mentions of the petulance of youth, the willful disrespect of elders, stupid boys and their mislead beliefs of invincibility, but at the end of his tirade as well as the day, he seemed confident that the boy would make a full recovery.

But Dong Soo worried. Sa Mo's words soothed him little if at all. He felt like this was his fault. He was the one who dragged his friend out to the ice pond to play that day.

When he was lucid enough, Woon had laughed and told him that this happened to him every year without fail. He just figured that this year, if he was going to get sick anyways, he might as well get sick having some fun.

Dong Soo called him a frail sissy.

Woon countered that a frail sissy would have succumbed to the illness the first time around. The fact that he got it every winter and survived proved he was more resilient than a full-grown warrior.

That was, of course, when he was lucid.

When Woon was feverish and sweating, breaths coming in shallow and fast, Dong Soo found himself unable to think of anything other than praying for his friend to get better. He did everything could to keep Woon comfortable—he kept the other cool by placing a cloth on latter's forehead, he fed Woon some simple and light vegetable soup when the latter was actually up to take in some nutrients, he talked to his friend and kept him company, brought him his books and read to him when the other couldn't focus enough to read, and he simply stayed.

One night was especially bad.

Woon had been delirious for a good hour, mumbling something that was a result of his hallucinations or nightmares. His breaths came in short and unsteady, and his eyes were screwed shut. There was an unhealthy sheen to his face, and the feverish tinge to his cheeks was ever more obvious in contrast to his pale skin.

And then the shivering began. 

Up until that moment, Woon had mostly bouts of fever. The fever then broke, and Woon would look almost healthy again, until the fever cycle hit once more, confining him to bed. He always had a slight shudder to him before the fever set in, but it hadn't ever been as bad as that night.

Even being cocooned in two thick blankets couldn't stop the sensation of cold that gripped Woon and caused him to shiver violently. Dong Soo couldn't stand it anymore and ripped open the cocoon of blankets before sliding inside.

He slept that night hugging his friend in a tight embrace.

Though they never really mentioned that night, Dong Soo couldn't help remembering it sometimes, thinking about how nice it had felt to hold the other boy like that. It was comforting. Woon wasn't a very touchy-feely person, not like Dong Soo, so it was rare that the latter could get a hug out of his friend.

Sometimes, he thought about that night, and how the other's warm breaths tickled his neck so much that he couldn't sleep for a good portion of the night. When he finally did manage to fall asleep, however, it was with a small content smile.

Woon quickly got better after that—Dong Soo liked to think that he was the main factor for Woon's recovery. Woon scoffed and said his sicknesses always lasted around a week, and he always got better. Still, he thanked the other sincerely, touched and grateful knowing just how much his friend had done for him. 

The weather steadily grew chillier for another three weeks, and it was during the coldest week of the year when Seol-lal[1] came.

Even the seeping cold couldn't dampen the mood of the bustling village as the New Year celebration rolled around. The entire week leading up to the New Year had been a frenzy of preparations. The women had started preparing dishes days in advance while the men worked hard to take care of the household chores. Mothers and fathers had worked together weeks in advance to sew new clothes and make new toys for their children so that when New Year finally arrived, the kids would have something new to enjoy.

It was around this time that things fell a little awkward between Dong Soo and Woon.

Every time Dong Soo looked at Woon, he found himself staring at the other longer than intended. Oftentimes, he would turn to the other boy to ask him something or just to see where he is, and half a minute later, he'd get jerked out of a trance he'd unknowingly slipped into by either Sa Mo or Sanai. He wasn't sure what brought on this—what he dubbed—Woon-watching, but he never seemed to tire of it.

Woon wasn't a very interesting person, not by most people's standards at first glance. He rarely did anything other than read. He, unlike Dong Soo, rarely expressed himself much either—gestures or facials or otherwise.

But his smiles...his smiles never failed to pull Dong Soo in.

He didn't know why never noticed before, but his friend had a beautiful smile. It never failed to give Dong Soo's heart a little skip. He felt special knowing that that smile was reserved, in a way, for him only—Woon rarely smiled at anyone else like that.

He didn't know why he spent so much time watching his friend—perhaps it was out of boredom and nothing else—but he felt satisfied doing so, and so he never really thought much of it.

That was, until Sa Mo pointed it out.

New Year preparations demanded all their energy and effort. From sorting out the vegetables and preparing the meat, to cleaning the house and decorating—the three members of the house worked closely to bring a festive new year to their home.

This, of course, meant that Dong Soo often worked sitting or standing right next to or across from Woon, with Sa Mo supervising nearby. At first, Dong Soo carried on as usual—doing his work while chatting with Woon and stealing glances at him when they were working silently.

But then one time, Sa Mo chuckled and said, "Yah inuma, you're gonna drill a hole in his head if you continue to stare at him the way you have been doing the past few days." He glanced down at Dong Soo and gave another snort before turning away.

Both Woon and Dong Soo whipped their heads to Sa Mo with startled and bewildered expressions. However, Sa Mo didn't give either of them another look and walked away, abandoning them to mull over his words and its implications.

Dong Soo couldn't tell whether all the blood had drained away from or rushed to his face in mortification. He hesitantly looked up at the other boy to see what Woon's reaction was, and found the latter blushing strongly, reflecting an unhealthy hue of red that he had never seen adorn the other's face before. Dong Soo stared, unable to form any words with his lips. "I..." he started uncertainly.

"Just...don't say anything, ok?" Woon breathed out slowly, avoiding his gaze.

Immediately, Dong Soo felt like his insides were seized and crushed. He forgot how to swallow and the obstruction in his throat was determinedly hindering his ability to talk. The pit of his stomach dropped and his fingers found the support of the table. "I—um...I'm gonna go see if—if Sa Mo needs any help," he quickly excused and ran out of there.

And it had been a huge awkward affair since then.

Preparations continued as usual, though now, Dong Soo spent more time avoiding Woon's gaze rather than staring at the other boy. If Sa Mo noticed the sudden change in the air surrounding the boys, he didn't comment.

When Seol-lal finally arrived, it was a cross between joyous and awkward. Jang Mi and Mi So had joined them at the dinner table that night, causing much argument and yelling between Dong Soo and Mi So. Still, it was all done in a light mood so everything was alright. It was a cross between joyous and awkward because on one hand, they joyously ate and drank to the happiness of the past year—especially Dong Soo's and Sanai's additions to their household. On the other hand, they—Dong Soo and Woon—awkwardly passed each other gifts while stealing hesitant glances at one another.

While most families saw a tradition of the parents giving gifts to the children, Dong Soon and Woon decided that they would all just give each other gifts. Their family was a unusual but special one, so why should they conform to the norm? Of course, the actual gift-giving scene had been a lot more awkward than the original gift-giving scene was intended. Dong Soo had whittled a tiny flute for Woon. It was completely off tune and didn't really have any musical properties to it at all, but Woon accepted it gratefully. Woon, in turn, had woven and sewn a simple satchel for Dong Soo. The two of them together had sewn Sa Mo a set of new boots while Sa Mo fashioned some new sheaths for their swords.

All in all, it was a good New Year celebration, albeit fringed with uncomfortable moments.

After Seol-lal, however, was when things went really downhill.

It had been two weeks after the new year, and Dong Soo and Woon hadn't talked for days—nothing beyond one word replies, usually comprised of 'Ah', 'Yes' or 'No'. Thankfully for Dong Soo, the beginnings of spring could be seen approaching, and he quickly found more and more excuses to escape outside, hiding out with Dae Ho's bunch to avoid the awkward tension hanging around at home.

On a few occasions, Dong Soo considered talking to Woon, trying to explain things—though what to explain, he had no idea himself. But every time he mustered up enough courage to approach Woon, the other boy found some excuse and extracted himself from the situation entirely, leaving a feeling of hurt in Dong Soo. 

Dong Soo wasn't even sure why Woon was avoiding him so. He bit his lip. It can't have been as awkward for Woon as it had been for Dong Soo—Dong Soo had been the one caught staring. Then the feeling of uncertainty began to gnaw at his conscience—what if Woon hated his staring? And he didn't want to be friends anymore? He didn't want to stop being friends, Dong Soo thought sadly.

It was usually around this time when he shook his head and went off in search of his other friends.

* * *

Woon hated it.

Although he never really let it show on his face, he hated the distance that had been created between him and Dong Soo because of that one incident.

_"Yah inuma, you're gonna drill a hole in his head if you continue to stare at him the way you have been doing the past few days."_

He bit his lip subtly. He didn't want to think about it.

What he could think about, however—and what he focused most of his time on—was the fact that Dong Soo had now been spending most of his time with Dae Ho's gang. Woon knew that it wasn't Dong Soo's fault, but seeing the latter laugh so carefree and joyously with the other children stirred up a hint of resentment within him.

So he took it out on the grass dummies Sa Mo had set up for him and Dong Soo in the backyard. He could see the group playing kickball in the play area from their backyard. He swung down his wooden sword on the grass doll hard. 

Someone scored a point, and Dong Soo was complaining loudly much to everyone's humor.

A scowl flashed across his expression, and he vowed not to look that way again. He stabbed the grass doll, kicked the grass doll, slashed at the grass doll, hit the grass doll, dodged an imaginary swing made by the grass doll and glared at the grass doll.

He maintained this somewhat-pattern of stress relief for another twenty minutes when Dae Ho's gang came trudging by the yard, finished with their game of ball and ambling about for a place to relax.

"Ouch! That looked like that hurt!" one of the boys called out mockingly. Woon ignored him. He did, however, steal a glance at Dong Soo. The other boy didn't say anything.

"What did the poor grass man do to you, yah Yeo Woon?" 

Slash. The grass man took on the image of the boy who just made that comment, and Woon imagined him shutting up at that.

"Hey, is he allowed to use a sword? Isn't it unsafe?" A girl spoke up, partially in suspicion and partially in ridicule. Woon froze. The blood began to wane from his face. They were not going to bring that up...did Dong Soo know yet? Did they tell him?

"It _is_ a little unnerving, isn't it? I bet he's imagining the grass doll is a real person and bleeding all over..."

He _did_ imagine the grass doll to be a person, but not bleeding...

"Yeah. He's destined to be a _killer_ after all—" Woon snapped his head up in horror, cold sweat overtaking him and smothering him in a cocoon of frost. He swayed unsteadily and reached out to regain support, only to find that he hadn't actually moved an inch at all. And, with half of him screaming at him not to and half of him coercing him to do it, he gradually let himself find Dong Soo to see his reaction. What he saw tore him to pieces. 

Dong Soo was _laughing_. Along with the other kids.

For one moment, Woon convinced himself he was dreaming. Dong Soo would never ridicule him like that. Dong Soo was his _friend_. Dong Soo wasn't that type of person. And Dong Soo, if anything, would be the first to step up and defend him. But the reality of the situation washed over him like an unforgiving plague, and he began to feel nauseous. Woon stared at his best friend, mouth slightly agape and hanging because in that moment, he just couldn't find the energy to maintain his normally-composed exterior, because he just couldn't believe—never in a million years—would he have believed Dong Soo would be _laughing_ at him like that.

Hurt tore through him like a whirlwind of shattered glass and left him weak. He had never known pain as he had felt that moment. His head swiveled with words and voices and laughter and Dong Soo, and his vision blurred then focused on the other boy. His heart constricted tightly, hindering his ability to breathe, and he wanted to puke. 

All this happened in a matter of seconds.

It hurt. It hurt so much. He had never been betrayed like this before. He had never _allowed_ it. 

There was fury and indignation mixed in with all his emotions, but the hurt and reeling betrayal blinded him, and all he could think of was running away. He couldn't though—his knees had locked themselves and chained him to the spot, subjugating him to the taunting and ridicule.

He was sure he was physically having trouble breathing now, and his eyes were stinging.

And for the first time in six years, Woon cried.

"Woon-ah?" Dong Soo called out to him tentatively, laughter and humor all but evaporated from his tone. 

He finally ran.


	6. Chapter 6

He was out by a river again. This time, it was a little ways more downstream, where the waters from the ravine crept along until they conjoined with their larger counterpart. This river spanned widely and freely across the open fields, touching the shallow banks serenely. The wind was benevolent and carried with it the scent of spring, running across the hills and rolling through the grass. A single bird soared across the wide expanse of the river, calling out to its wayward companions as it went. Solitude embraced him and peace comforted him.

This was his favorite spot.

He used to come here a lot more when he was younger, whenever he had problems—mostly problems with the other children. The last time he escaped to here in tears, it had been when he was still a child. That day had started out innocently with him playing with his dog. But something happened and everything quickly escalated out of his control—his dog ended up attacking a farmer. The villagers blamed him for raising a dog that 'bit people so savagely'. It had been the farmer's fault for cornering Woon—his dog was only doing what any loyal dog would do and attacked the farmer. The farmer ended up just fine after some minor treatment, but no one cared. The adults and children called him names and threw rocks at him. In the end, they also demanded that his dog be put to death. He rarely if ever cried in front of Sa Mo and never in front of anyone else. He had always held it out until he got out here.

This was his comfort spot. 

That was six years ago. That day, he cried and cried until the tears stopped flowing and his throat had swollen up from sobbing. And that day, he had vowed that he would never let the other kids get to him like that again. He would never give them the satisfaction of shedding another tear and silently promised that this would be his revenge. And so that promise held—

—until today.

He cried. 

Silent tears ghosted their way down his cheeks. He closed his eyes, hoping it would stop the tears from coming, but still felt them tracing the glistening streaks down his cheek endlessly. He drew in a couple of deep shuddering breaths, wincing at the piercing pain in his chest. He wiped his eyes with his sleeve and sniffed once, then held his head high against the wind and willed it to carry away his hurt.

He stared out at the river.

He didn't understand how Dong Soo, his friend, could do that. A dull echo of pain resonated within him again. He had accepted rejection from everyone else. Some people ignored him, some people disliked him, and some people outright hated him. Woon was able to ignore them all, blocking them out with a cold mind and colder heart.

But not Dong Soo. Not his friend. Nothing Woon had felt towards him had ever been cold.

He drew his knees up to his chest and put his forehead down on his knees. 

_"The Killing Star shines over you..."_

"No..." 

_"Wasn't Shin's injury your fault? He almost died."_

"No...!"

_"He's destined to be a killer after all—"_

"Shut up!" he screamed, shooting straight up in hurtful rage. Years of being wronged, being judged and being blamed came crashing down on him, and he lashed out uncontrollably. 

He could have taken it. 

He punched the ground, clutching the grass until his knuckles turned white.

He could have taken it, and he did.

He let out another scream of fury.

They took everything from him.

He punched the ground again.

He never cared.

He gritted his teeth.

But why did they also take _his only friend_?

He stopped.

He looked down at his hand. It was now bruised with blood.

He headed back.

* * *

Dong Soo wrung his hands anxiously as he sat in front of the house, jiggering his knee impatiently. It had been two hours since Woon had run off. Dong Soo had promptly chased after him, ignoring the calls of his friends behind him. He jumped over the fence and sprinted through the house, but ended up losing sight of the other boy when he came out of the front door.

He thought about chasing after his friend and tried to remember where Woon liked to hide out. With a flash of guilt, he realized he had no idea—he never learned where Woon's favorite places were.

So he settled by waiting in the front yard. Woon was bound to come home sooner or later, right?

But in the meantime, he was left to his thoughts and images of his friend's expression, full of betrayal and hurt.

Woon had cried. Dong Soo gnawed on his lip, deeply unsettled by the fact. He placed his face in his palms. How had it come to that?

The approaching shuffle of footsteps on dirt drew his attention, causing him to look up sharply.

Woon was back.

"Woon-ah..." Dong Soo began uncertainly, desperately trying to make eye contact. Woon refused him. His eyes widened as they travelled down to Woon's right hand, which was bleeding. "How'd you do that? Let me see," Dong Soo demanded worriedly and quickly made his way over.

He let out a mental sigh of relief when Woon didn't pull away as he reached for the other's hand, but frowned when Woon had absolutely no reaction whatsoever. "We should get this wrapped up," he suggested. "Funny how every time we get into an argument your hand takes the fall, huh?" Dong Soo joked nervously, smile failing when he still got no reaction out of the other boy. 

"Look," Dong Soo began, letting Woon's hand go for now, "I...I'm sorry. I didn't mean to laugh—"

Woon looked at him with an unreadable expression. But if Dong Soo had to bet, he would have guessed that there was a hint of barely contained rage within the other. "Well, no. I meant to laugh, and I did. I'm sorry," Dong Soo quickly amended, "but...it's not what you think."

Woon frowned, and Dong Soo could now see traces of vulnerability and hurt reflected in his friend's eyes. He hated himself so much in that moment, knowing that he was the one who put them there. "I...I laughed because I didn't want things to get awkward between you guys again. If I laughed it off, I figured they would just leave it and not hassle you," Dong Soo tried to explain.

"Look, Woon-ah, I don't know what their joke meant. Or, I assume I don't, not really," he confessed candidly.

Confusion settled on Woon's face, though his silence was resilient. 

"I didn't know it would hurt you so much. I just thought..." he paused, unsure of how to continue, "...I thought they were joking about how you were like a girl."

Woon blinked and glanced away again, but Dong Soo was sure he could see a small twitch at the corner of his friend's lips. "I mean, the stuff they said? About how if you were safe with a sword—" he immediately cut off upon seeing Woon wince. "I mean...it kinda sounded like you sucked at swordplay, you know? And I mean, you looked really pretty while practicing, so I figured they might have been joking about how you were like a girl, and it would have been dangerous for a girl who doesn't know how to handle a sword to handle one, yeah?" he explained, recalling his own flow of thoughts.

"...You think I was 'pretty'?" Woon mumbled, looking abashed and turning downwards so to avoid looking at Dong Soo. 

Dong Soo's eyes widened immediately. "NO! Uh...I mean—yes, um, what I meant was...I think you looked nice. You know, your stance and all. Your posture has improved a lot, and your form is very good now so...uh...did I say pretty? I meant heroic. Warrior-like." He nodded for emphasis.

Woon finally relaxed a bit and let out a small laugh. He walked up next to Dong Soo and stood shoulder to shoulder with him. "Thanks," he stated simply and walked on.

Dong Soo blinked. "Wait, does that mean...you forgive me?" he asked hesitantly yet hopefully, pivoting around eagerly with a broad smile splitting his face.

Woon paused. "' _Forget injuries, never forget kindnesses,_ '" he recited in reply. "Although, forgetting may take some time this time around," he added on quietly.

Dong Soo's shoulders slumped, and his face fell. "Oh...ok. I understand," he said while putting on a meek grin. "How long do you—you know what? Never mind. Take as long as you need. Baek Dong Soo will be eagerly awaiting you when you're ready," he nodded at Woon with a much more confident smile. 

Woon didn't say anything and went back into the house.

* * *

Another week passed by without much happening. Dong Soo was getting rather antsy at the silent treatment—even if Yeo Woon claimed otherwise, Dong Soo believed that this was what their interactions had boiled down too—that Woon was giving him. Even if he told the other to take as much time as he needed...

His sword clattered to the ground.

"Woon—one hundred and sixteen, Dong Soo—twelve. Yah Dong Soo-ya, you haven't won a single time against Woon since Woon first started winning. Tsk tsk tsk...a little disappointing, no?" Sa Mo commented dryly from his referee position. It wasn't completely true—Dong Soo had won after Woon's first victory, the succeeding one actually, but with lesser and lesser frequency.

Dong Soo sneered at him and stuck out a tongue, but didn't say anything. Neither did Woon.

Sa Mo looked from left to right to left again between the two boys and scratched his beard. "You two have been awfully quiet recently," he stated, trying to encourage an explanation out of the boys. When neither even acknowledged his words let alone answered, he sighed, "Whatever it is you guys fought about this time, hurry up and make up. The pig pen has been rather lonely lately and needs some love and care."

He then turned around and walked back into the house, stretching and muttering something about adolescents and their inability to communicate normally.

Dong Soo moved slowly to pick up his sword and watched out of the corner of his eye as Woon sheathed his. Woon walked back into the house without another glance at Dong Soo, and Dong Soo pouted. 

"Tch, how boring," he grumbled, glaring down at his sword. "Might as well go find Dae Ho's bunch—at least they don't pretend like I'm air," he sighed to no one and moved to put up his stuff.

* * *

Five minutes into joining Dae Ho's bunch and Dong Soo was beginning to regret his decision. The gang today had decided to play a boring game called 'Questions', which really wasn't a game at all, in Dong Soo's opinion. It consisted of someone starting by asking one of the other kids in the circle a question. That person has to answer truthfully, or they would get punished—punishment decided by the group. After that person answered truthfully, he or she would get to ask another child a question and so on and so forth.

Dong Soo really thought it was stupid.

What fun was there in asking questions? People did that in everyday conversation. But Dae Ho insisted he stay at least a few minutes to observe. And so Dong Soo did. Though so far, he hadn't found anything interesting to stay for.

He was about to voice his decision to leave when someone called out, "Dong Soo!"

"Huh?" Dong Soo blinked, snapping out of his boredom trance to find everyone eagerly facing him. "What?" he asked stupidly. Jin Joo pouted and reached over to smack his head. "Ow! You crazy girl—what did I do?" he protested loudly.

Jin Joo gave a satisfied 'hmph!' and crossed her arms. 

Chung Hee grinned apologetically and said, "It's your turn to answer, Dong Soo." He then turned to face his sister and prodded, "Yah, Dong Soo's listening now. You going to ask him or what?"

Jin Joo pouted one more time before doing a complete one-eighty, suddenly giggling and looking abashed. Dong Soo stared at her, horrified at the speed at which she managed to transform herself. Jin Joo giggled a little more while darting Dong Soo a quick glance.

"Any day now, Jin Joo," one of the other boys commented bored.

Jin Joo promptly chucked a nearby pebble at the other boy. She then turned back to Dong Soo, glancing at him shyly again. "Dong Soo- _ya_ ," she cut off giggling again, while Chung Hee sweat-dropped at his sister's antics. "I want to know...do you...you know... _like_ anyone right now?" All the boys except for Chung Hee, Dae Ho and Dong Soo groaned while the girls gasped in excitement, applauding Jin Joo for being brave enough to ask such a thing. Indeed, the girl seemed to be flushed and was squirming with anticipation at Dong Soo's reply. 

"Uh..."

"Really, Jin Joo. You just wanna know 'cause—OW!" Chul Moo cut off loudly, rubbing at his nose.

Jin Joo turned her attention back to Dong Soo, focusing on him intensely. "Do you?" she asked again and pursed her lips, blinking cutely.

"...What do you mean by 'like'?" Dong Soo asked apprehensively, shifting a little in place.

Another round of groans—this time louder—went around.

"Yah Dong Soo, do you have a death wish or what?" Chung Hee asked faintly while wincing. 

"Death wish? That's a little dramatic—"

"Liking someone _that_ way means that you feel butterflies in your stomach—" Jin Joo started dreamily.

"—and your heart goes 'badump...badump'—" another girl caught on.

"You are willing to go to the ends of the earth with that person you like! No...love!" a third curl cut in.

"You would stand on burning coals—"

"You would walk through a snowstorm—"

"You would give up your favorite food ever—"

"Or never eat again!"

"Your cheeks turn red when he looks your way..."

"You can't stop staring at them from far away!"

"You want him to hold you—"

"—and you want to hold him!"

"Everything is alright as long as you have each other!" All the girls—Dong Soo hadn't even realized there were so many girls here today—sighed contentedly and giggled at each other.

Chung Hee was still shaking his head in dismay, bearing a tortured expression. Dae Ho looked amused. All the other boys were groaning or gagging or both at the sappy nonsense that was spewing forth from the girls' mouths.

"Well?" Jin Joo nudged Dong Soo expectantly, eyes twinkling in curiosity. 

"Um..." he stalled nervously. At first, Dong Soo was sorely tempted to just roll his eyes and say 'no'. Burning coal? Snowstorms? Stupid things to do to prove your so-called 'love' or 'like' or whatever. But then when they mentioned the bit about staring at the person you like and wanting to hold him and be held by him, Dong Soo thought of Woon. Without even thinking through clearly, he blurted out, "Yes." Seeing everyone's jaws drop open, he quickly amended, "Just a little. Maybe," and blushed. Then he cleared his throat in a futile attempt to redeem some of his dignity.

Squeals erupted from all around him, and he couldn't hold back a wince. He noticed he wasn't alone in that action. Someone reached over to him and patted him sympathetically on the back. "Man, I commend you on speaking the truth on _that_ question. Good luck, good brother. You have fought bravely," the boy sighed.

"Who, Dong Soo, who?" one of the girls, Jin Joo's best friend, shouted excitedly. "Is it someone here in this group? Maybe sitting right—" she was cut off when Jin Joo nudged her impatiently. 

Dong Soo shook his head with a smirk. "That's two questions now. Nope! My turn! Eun-hae," he called out, turning to face Jin Joo's best friend. "Does Jin Joo like me?" he asked while pointing to himself, full grin plastered on his face.

Jin Joo screamed in outrage, turning as red as a ripe tomato. "Eun hae-ya! You can't say anything!" she puffed out embarrassedly. Eun Hae looked back and forth between her friend and Dong Soo, torn and trapped. Finally settling for Dong Soo, she nodded hastily and immediately ducked a punch thrown by Jin Joo, who screamed, "You little...!" Eun Hae then stood up and ran, Jin Joo following close behind.

"Your sister is scary, Chung Hee," Chul Moo sniffed. 

Chung Hee sighed and shook his head. "Well, since Eun-hae is currently indisposed...Dae Ho, how about you go?" he offered.

Dae Ho nodded and cocked his head thoughtfully. "Kwan. What is the weirdest dream you've ever had?" he asked. 

Kwan took in a breath. "Weirdest dream, huh? Has to be the one where I had a conversation with a ghost, probably," he answered. 

"Ghost?" one of the other kids gasped.

Kwan nodded. "Yeah. It was strange—I was just talking to the ghost. I don't even know what we talked about. It was this black sort of floating form—didn't even have a form. But...I was talking to it like it was my friend or something. I wasn't scared at all," he finished proudly.

"Wow," Chung Hee said.

"And the weird thing is, I remember being scared to death of ghosts before! I'm pretty sure it was also close to the time when I spent one whole night crying because my eomeoni didn't allow me to sleep with her when I said I was scared. I remember that night clearly—I was crying in the dark for a long long time. Actually, I think it was my first memory. But anyways, ever since then, I haven't been scared of ghosts or anything," he wrapped up with a smirk.

"Huh. Bad thing to have as a first memory though," Chul Moo commented. "My earliest memory was of my eomeoni singing to me. I don't remember what she sang, but I remember her patting my back while holding me."

"Mine...was of different colored silk," Dae Ho began slowly. "My abeoji told me I had just begun to walk, and there were some traders that passed through the village one day, carrying silk of all types. I don't think I've ever seen such vivid colors before, so that stuck in my mind."

The other kids then took turns recounting their first memories. Some were gentle and warm while others were exciting or embarrassing. Dong Soo, however, remained silent. He chewed on his bottom lip, shifting around uncomfortably.

"Yah Dong Soo, what was your first memory? You came from a different village, right? What was it like? Was it different from ours?" Chung Hee asked curiously.

Dong Soo didn't say anything. He kept his gaze trained on the ground before him.

Chung Hee frowned. "Is something wrong?" he asked gently.

Dong Soo vacillated between saying something and not saying anything. He didn't want to bring up the fact that he had no memories of his past. But...these were his friends, right? They were good to him and deserved to know the truth. Making up his mind, he said, "Actually...I have something to say."

Chung Hee and Dae Ho glanced at each other while Kwan and Chul Moo frowned. All the other kids looked confused.

"I don't have any memories of before I came here," he confessed, taking in the expressions of those around him. "I had an accident, apparently, after my eomeoni died. I lost my memories then. Sa Mo said my memories would return in time, but for now, the only memories I have are of the people in this village."

Dae Ho was the first to react. He gave Dong Soo an encouraging smile and said, "I'm glad you trusted us enough to tell us. Don't worry about it. What matters is that you're here now, right?" He looked to Kwan and Chung Hee for confirmation, to which the two responded in kind.

Dong Soo let out a relieved smile. "Thanks, guys. It means a lot," he told them.

Dae Ho shook his head and said, "No problem. Now, where were we in the game?"

* * *

Dong Soo returned to find no one home. He sighed half in relief and half in disappointment. Walking over to the water barrel, he helped himself to a cup of water. Walking over to his straw bed, he plopped down on it and stretched his limbs in the air before letting them fall down around him.

He was just on the verge of dozing off to sleep when the door creaked open and startled him. He sat up and watched as Woon shuffled in tiredly without a word, dumping an armful of firewood in the corner of the house. He straightened up and rotated his shoulders one at a time. He rolled his neck around and tried to massage his right shoulder blade. 

_"You can't stop staring at them from far away!"_

Dong Soo blushed and turned away, determined not to fall into the same pattern that occurred several weeks ago. That's what started this whole mess they were currently in. How much longer was it going to go on anyways? 

He cleared his throat obviously, resolving to change their current situation. Even if he told Woon to take time, it wouldn't hurt if he helped out a little, right? "Where is Sa Mo?" he asked, selecting a neutral inquiry purposefully. 

Woon halted in his activities and glanced in his direction. He didn't meet Dong Soo's eyes, but the latter considered it a start. "I think he went out to ajumma's place. He should be back within the hour," Woon replied rather blandly, though Dong Soo could tell he was at least making an effort to sound casual now.

"Again? I swear that old geezer definitely has something going on over there...and he still won't tell us. Aish, chincha..." he complained loudly, grinning to himself when he caught Woon smiling out of the corner of his eye.

He inconspicuously observed the other boy go about his own business. 

_"You want him to hold you...and you want to hold him!"_

Dong Soo smiled.

* * *

Over the next few days, the tension in the house slowly dissipated like clouds disappearing before the sun. Some tendrils still liked to creep up on them at some odd hours during the day: One morning, Dong Soo awoke to find his arm completely numb to the joint and immobile. As it turned out, the culprit for the lack of blood flow to his limb was Woon, who had shifted over in his sleep and somehow ended up enlisting Dong Soo's arm as his make-do pillow. Of course, it wasn't completely Woon's fault—his own pillow had been occupied by Sanai.

He hadn't realized he had been staring for so long until Woon began to stir. Hastily trying to remove his arm before his friend woke up and realized the position they were in, Dong Soo ended up jerking his arm out, successfully alerting a sleepy Woon in the process.

Woon had blinked and frowned, but didn't take long to connect the dots upon seeing Dong Soo's painful expression and the glaring red spot on Dong Soo's arm where Woon's head had been. To Woon's credit, he didn't blush or turn pink at all. However, it was positively evident how embarrassed he was, as he suddenly began fumbling around and desperately avoiding eye contact or any type of physical contact with Dong Soo. He mumbled some hasty excuse that Dong Soo couldn't bother with hearing and stumbled up and left.

Dong Soo was left to soak in the discomfort all by himself.

Sanai barked, having been awoken by the hustle.

Dong Soo sent her a withering glare.

Nevertheless, they managed to interact more like they did before. Dong Soo reverted back to his silly, mischief-making, trouble-seeking self while Woon watched, entertained, from the sidelines as Sa Mo chased after Dong Soo.

The fact that Woon hadn't fully forgiven Dong Soo was just nominal now—Dong Soo would have eagerly bet his right arm that deep down, Woon had forgiven him. The fact that he hadn't managed to verbalize his intent could be blamed on the lack of opportune and appropriate timing.

As a result, Dong Soo found himself spending more and more time in Woon's presence once more and less in the company of Dae Ho's bunch. The youth felt somewhat guilty for not spending so much time with his other friends, but between the work Sa Mo kept piling up on his back and ensuring he maintained enough 'Woon-time', there were little to no hours left for him to seek out the others for a game or two of ball.

After turning down the offers to hang out two or three times, Dong Soo could feel a hint of animosity building up among some members of the group. Why did they always have to consider Dong Soo's opinion if he mostly likely wasn't going to show up anyways? Some kids had asked. Did he still consider them friends? Perhaps amnesia was like a disease—Dong Soo forgot about his new friends just like he did his old ones. 

That had stilled Dong Soo. 

The other kids laughed, pretending like they were about to catch 'amnesia', scaring each other and backing away. One boy, who was genuinely frightened, panicked and threatened bodily harm if another boy didn't stop immediately—the latter had been acting like a ghost, inching his way forward while chanting 'Forget-me-not'. His tormentor shrieked with laughter, rebutting that if he _did_ catch amnesia, it's not like he would remember who cursed him! 

Finally, it was Dae Ho who cut in and told them to stop. He had been chuckling a little earlier, but upon seeing the expression on Dong Soo's face, decided to intervene. He then turned to Dong Soo and grabbed the latter's shoulder, telling him that it was just a joke and that the other kids didn't know any better. Dong Soo was fine, right? It wasn't a big deal.

Dong Soo then relaxed a bit, a shadow receding from his mind. He confirmed Dae Ho's words and jested that he'd 'forgotten' all about it already. Dae Ho and the other kids laughed, and the former clapped the other on the shoulder, praising him for his 'good sport'. 

' _Forget injuries, never forget kindnesses'_ , he recalled Woon quoting Confucius and decided to follow Woon's example and take heed of the good advice.

* * *

"One...two...three...!"

A loud clamor erupted in the air as Kwan successfully managed to grab onto the hanging tree branch with both hands. He readjusted his grip on the branch and waited until his body came to a still before dropping down onto the soft cushiony earth below.

Smugness and pride was written all over Kwan's face, and the boy dusted his pants and cracked his back before sauntering pompously back to the group. He grinned as the others clapped him on the shoulders and patted his back. A chorus of 'who's next's sprouted up as the kids volunteered each other for the next jump.

They were all crowded around the ancient oak tree that stood guard over the small ravine where Dong Soo had been discovered months and months ago. The squabble of children had taken turns in daring one another to make the jump from the sturdy thick branch of the old tree to the smaller branch of a neighboring tree. 

So far, only Kwan had managed the feat—the other boys who made the brave attempt found themselves a mouthful of water when they fell short of the branch and plunged not-so-heroically into the water below with a spectacular splash.

Some adamantly refused to try and no amount of taunting and jeering could convince them to drop their healthy sense of self-preservation and brave the task. 

Dong Soo was one of the few who were caught just teetering on the fence; therefore, it was no surprise the group had turned to swarm him next.

"Come on, Dong Soo! We know you wanna go! Show us what you're made of!" Jin Joo cheered him on eagerly, pushing him towards the base of the tree. Chung Hee looked like he wanted to step in, but didn't quite muster up enough courage to defend Dong Soo against his sister.

"I don't think it's such a good idea..." Dong Soo tried to argue weakly, but his hands were already finding the support of the tree trunk and prepared for his legs to hoist him up onto the branch.

"Don't be silly! Who was it that said he was the bravest warrior in all of Joseon? Or did you _forget_ what you swore again?" someone piped up, earning a round of chuckles in response. Dong Soo frowned. Recently, his friends had taken to poking fun at his amnesia—whether it was out of ill will or simply inconsiderate humor, he couldn't tell. He usually just laughed tightly and went along with it. 

There were some moments—like now—when Dong Soo seriously considered telling them off and appealing his discomfort and dislike of their humor, but then phrases like 'it was only a joke' would flash by in his mind, quieting him immediately.

Sometimes, Dae Ho stepped in for Dong Soo—something the latter was constantly grateful for. But as time went on, Dong Soo began to notice that while Dae Ho had a tendency to play defender, it wasn't so much for _Dong Soo_ as much as it had been for the others. The older boy would always throw in a comment or two when the line was crossed, but he always did so in a manner that made it seem like he was humoring Dong Soo as an adult would a child. It was as if Dae Ho didn't actually believe the jokes to be offensive, but intervened at certain precise moments just to prevent Dong Soo from lashing out negatively against the others.

That hurt.

He shook his head and focused on the task before him. He blinked. Confusion etched into his facials as his eyes rested on that faraway branch; he swore it was so much closer earlier than it appeared now. There seemed to be a steep drop from his height to the water, and there was a deep gaping abyss between his current position and the target tree branch. Certainly that hadn't been the case when he observed from the ground?

"Come on!" someone urged.

Dong Soo felt his muscles bunching up, preparing to make the leap. He was about to jump when a sudden voice in his mind told him 'no' and, in a moment of utter disarray, his limbs failed to cooperate with his mind and nearly sent him pummeling into the water below. Fortunately for him, all he ended up doing was jiggling the tree branch. He held out a hand to steady himself, feeling the pounding of his heart surge in a moment of panic. He shook his head, climbing down from the tree branch. "Nope. Sorry guys, Joseon's number one swordsman is not quite up to it today," he tried making up for the round of disappointment with some light humor. 

He landed on his feet and dusted off his hands, walking away from the tree trunk. 

"Chincha...you're just another scaredy cat."

Dong Soo shrugged. "Better a scaredy cat than a dead one," he pointed out truthfully.

Kwan rolled his eyes. "Don't be so dramatic. You're not going to die. The worst that can happen is you fall into the water and get a little wet," he scoffed arrogantly, clearly happy that he could best Dong Soo at something for once. "You telling me you're scared of getting wet?" He smirked, cockiness oozing out of him like a foul odor permeating the air.

Dong Soo snorted in reply, refusing to counter the other's jibe. He didn't know what the other's boy problem was, but lately, the other had been set on subtly harassing Dong Soo. He had caught the other boy glaring at him venomously once or twice. He had racked his head to see if there had been any ill he had committed unintentionally against Kwan, but nothing pulled through. In the end, he pinned it down to envy of his popularity and charisma, and left it at that.

Normally he would have consulted this issue with Woon—his friend usually had much more insightful ideas and logical thoughts, but they still weren't quite back to deep conversing terms yet. And even if they were, Dong Soo wasn't sure he'd talk to Woon about it since he would have to bring up the stuff Kwan would say about _him_. That was another, more bothersome thing that troubled Dong Soo. He didn't like the way Kwan recently picked up the habit of attacking Woon—especially when the other boy wasn't even there to defend himself.

Eventually, after innumerable disagreements and arguments, Dong Soo learned to just drop the matter altogether when it came to Kwan.

"What a coward. I bet your parents aren't really dead. They just didn't want a coward for a son anymore and lucky for you and them, you don't remember. You must have been a worthless kid."

Or not. That stopped Dong Soo in his tracks.

_"What if I was someone bad?"_

"What did you say...?" Dong Soo managed dangerously, rage slowly seeping through his veins and burning its way into his every nerve. His jaws tightened and clicked, and he clenched his fists, breathing steadily through his nose to siphon off his anger. 

"Ouch. Struck a chord, have I? Does Dong Soo want mommy's love?" he cooed insultingly, encouraging a few taunts around the circle. 

_"You're good, Baek Dong Soo"_

"Shut up...!" Dong Soo seethed, desperately holding back from lashing out.

"Coward. No wonder your parents didn't want you."

"Kwan!" Chung Hee cried out, shocked that the other would say such things. 

Kwan shrugged. "No crime in pointing out the truth. Or does Dong Soo want to prove he isn't the coward he is?" he jeered, daring Dong Soo with his words and his stare.

"Fine," Dong Soo spat out, anger and pride wreaking havoc within him and demanding him to defend his honor. Without another word, he pivoted around and marched straight back to the tree, found a foothold for his left leg and hoisted himself up onto the tree branch. He resumed the position he had adopted a few minutes earlier and looked down.

This time, there wasn't an abyss, just red—pure indignation begging to be released in his next action. His eyes zeroed in on the tree branch a few feet away from him. Once again, his muscles prepared him for the spring, and he jumped. 

He caught the tree branch. A jolt of exhilaration and pride shot through him as he looked up and saw the sunlight filtering through the green canopy.

Then suddenly, people screamed. Dong Soo blinked. Why were they screaming? And then he realized that while he was still staring straight up at the same foliage above him, he was no longer holding onto the tree branch but lying on his back. 

"...blood! Quick, go get...!" 

"...ok? Look what you've done now! You..."

"No! Don't move him too much, just..."

Why were people talking so weirdly?

He didn't spend much time on this last lingering thought as darkness took over.

 


	7. Chapter 7

_He dreamed._

_Figures and shapes drifted by him, manifesting randomly and evaporating unexpectedly. There were neither faces nor names attached to these incorporeal forms, just voices and feelings. He called out to them, wishing one of them would pause and explain to him where he was, what he was doing, who he was and where he should go._

_None of them paid any heed to his requests, simply ambling away on their own business before yet another voice took over his attention._

_"Just let him be for...twice a day, make sure..." Blue. This one was blue and mint-cool and soothing. There was a monstrous fire within him that abated when the blue figure wisped by, lingering momentarily in front of him before floating on._

_"...he thinking? Chincha, what..." Dong Soo frowned at the red permeating his senses. It wasn't a bad red, but a red that cause him to itch nonetheless._

_"...sleep, now. Shh..." This voice was warm and the form that carried it was yellow, like the gentle caress of a spring sun—or was it the comforting embrace of a harvest moon?_

_"Don't go!" he cried out after the retreating figure, panic seizing him as he realized the voice and form was drifting away. He bounded after the form, only to realize his arms and legs were as heavy as lead, weighing him down to the spot. "Please!" he called out again, hope rising a little when the figure returned._

_The voice sighed. "I'm not going anywhere, idiot..."_

_Dong Soo pouted, chest rising in indignation. He opened his mouth to speak—_

_"I know. You're not. Now sleep."_

_And sleep he did._

* * *

Woon quietly left when soft snores could be heard from the still boy. He glanced down at and flexed his hand where Dong Soo brushed him earlier. He touched his palm with his other hand, tracing the calluses that had slowly formed as evidence of his training. Woon had always hated how long and soft his fingers were—it reminded him of the gisaeng that played gayageum, a long instrument with twelve strings of different sounds. Of course, Woon had never _seen_ the gisaeng play them, but...

He closed his fist and smiled. The other boy's hand was soft too.

He stepped outside and idly checked on the teapot to see if the water was hot enough. Seeing that there were no bubbles forming yet under the lid, Woon took a nearby stick to prod the small kindling heating the pot, trying to engorge the flame beneath. He propped the stick on a nearby rock and sat down on the ground. 

A slight shiver tingled its way up his spine, and Woon glanced around in the darkness—the only source of light emitting from the small fire before him. It was much quieter out here, away from Dong Soo's quiet snores and Sa Mo's loud ones. There was a constant chirping of crickets that sounded through an otherwise silent night.

He drew his knees up to his chest and rested his chin on top of them. Well, today had certainly been hectic. He had been in the middle of helping Sa Mo sorting and processing the meat—much to his disgust—when one girl came frantically pounding on their door, claiming that Dong Soo had been hurt badly. 

Sa Mo had dropped everything on the spot and ran out to the place the girl led them to with Woon following close behind with worry.

There was a crowd surrounding Dong Soo's soaked and unmoving form on the bank of the shallow river. Woon's heart leapt at the sight of blood decorating Dong Soo's left shoulder through the huddle of kids. Sa Mo had immediately ordered Woon to return and prepare some warm water and fetch some herbs from Jang Mi, hastily listing off some of the more obvious and important ones off the top of his head. 

Woon nodded, unable to find his voice and relieved to be given the opportunity to distance himself from the scene. He wasn't sure what he would have done had he seen Dong Soo in full view, so defenseless and lifeless with blood all over. So he ran all the way back to the village and carried out Sa Mo's instructions to the letter.

He had just returned with the herbs and found the water boiling when Sa Mo stumbled his way through the door, Dong Soo sprawled limply on his back. Woon had helped ease Dong Soo off of Sa Mo's back and onto his cot, darting a concerned and questioning look at his guardian right after the deed was done. 

Sa Mo sighed and wiped his head with his forearm. He leaned back, heaved a deep breath and said, "The brat will be fine. He scraped his arm up pretty badly, but miraculously no bones were broken. He's going to have one hell of a nasty bruise later though." 

Woon gave no hint that he heard, moving with swiftness to clean his friend's injury with a clean cloth. He dipped the rag in the bowl of warm water and wrung it dry, reaching over to peel back Dong Soo's tunic and dabbing the other's shoulder gently.

After applying the necessary herbs and dressing the injury with much care and delicacy, Woon changed Dong Soo out of the rest of his clothes—the latter had fallen into the water after all and had been soaked.

Then he sat back and watched.

Eventually, Sa Mo headed to bed, leaving matters to Woon and telling him to alert him in case of anything. Woon nodded and resumed his blank staring at the injured boy before him. He sat there motionlessly with his knees half drawn up and half Indian-style, held in place by clasping his hands around his legs. He soon meandered into his own thoughts and when he repossessed his senses, realized that Dong Soo was flushed with fever.

Worry flooded Woon's mind. He didn't like how ill the other boy appeared, with his messy curls dampened and clumpy with perspiration and his chest rising up and down in an unsteady rhythm in an attempt to bring more oxygen to its host. Woon briefly wondered if this was what Dong Soo had felt when Woon had gotten sick, and bit his lip.

He renewed towel after towel, dumping out a bucket of water after it had been contaminated with warmth. Sometime during the night, Dong Soo began to mumble incoherently and disjointedly. Woon replied at times, not really thinking he could hear, but feeling comfort in knowing he might.

Finally, Dong Soo managed to fall asleep. 

And that brought him up to now.

The night sky was bereft of stars, and the moon seemed to have remained inconspicuous, not sharing its pale glow tonight with Woon. So Woon simply sat there, peering purposelessly into the black void. He estimated that it was nearing two or three in the morning now, though he couldn't be sure.

An abrupt and abnormally resounding snore echoed from inside the house.

Yes, it was time he tried to sleep, Woon supposed.

* * *

When Dong Soo woke, it was to the steady, repetitive 'thunk' chopping sound resounding from the butcher's knife as it met the cutting board. He twisted and tried to turn away from a stray strand of light that pervaded the roof into his eyes. In the process of doing so, he involuntarily jerked his arms and let out a hiss when an itching pain shot through his left shoulder.

Warily, he wriggled his other limbs before deciding there was no harm in moving them, and slowly made to sit up, taking care in minimizing the jostling of his left arm.

"What kind of idiot takes on a dare to jump from one tree branch to another? Are you some type of monkey?" 

Dong Soo snapped his head to the side and glanced up, his eyes trailing Woon's figure as the other boy walked closer and sat down next to him, caressing a bowl of hot soup in his hands. The bedridden boy tried glaring down Woon for the insult, but the expression slowly wilted as he studied his friend's calm and gentle features.

Regardless, he retained his silence, recalling with a degree of bitterness the events that had happened before he lost consciousness—the one that had occurred just before as well as the ones that took place much prior to. 

Anger simmered in his nerves and dark thoughts plagued his mind. Kwan's taunting still echoed in his ears, and he clenched his fists. He could hear the tinkling of the spoon stirring against the bowl and Woon gently blowing on the soup to cool it off. A tic developed under his eye. He didn't quite understand why, but he felt his anger rush towards Woon just as much as it rushed towards Kwan at the moment. He remembered thinking before that what mattered was that Woon forgave him in spirit and being happy with that, but now the fact that the other hadn't said so weighed heavily on his mind.

Everything just sucked.

He actually went back and forth between Woon and Kwan, can't deciding which one riled up more of his ire. He knew he shouldn't be mad at Woon—to be honest, he didn't know why he was. He surmised that it was the fact that Woon was only acting completely normal and concerned _now_ , after it took Dong Soo losing consciousness and getting hurt for his friend to have a change of heart.

"Here—some soup will be good for you. You've been out for all of yesterday and this morning." 

Dong Soo turned his head aside with a grimace.

Woon was briefly taken aback by the rejection. He shrank back a little, letting the spoon rest in the bowl. "Why don't you eat?" he asked, not understanding. He tried again, this time a bit slower, and leveled the spoon with Dong Soo's lips. "You need your strength. That shoulder of yours isn't going to heal without nutrition," he said.

This time Dong Soo didn't turn away. However, he still refused to be fed, clamping his mouth shut tightly. Woon held the spoon there for a few more seconds before sighing audibly and softly putting the bowl of soup down on the floor. 

"Will you tell me what happened?" he asked patiently.

Dong Soo shook his head childishly, turning a bit away from Woon. 

Woon stiffened, then asked quietly with a hint of resignation, "Are you angry with me?"

And for the first time in a long time, Dong Soo met Woon's eyes straight on and neither turned away. The other's eyes reflected sorrow and loneliness with a touch of regret. Dong Soo looked down and mumbled, "How did you know?" 

Woon sighed, "So you are..."

Dong Soo glanced up again, frowning. "So you didn't know?" he gaped.

Woon shook his head. "It was a hunch. You confirmed it for me." After a moment of silence passed between them—Dong Soo noticed that the chopping sound had stopped a while ago, signifying Sa Mo's absence—Woon continued, "You looked at me earlier and you looked upset," referring to when he first came in.

Dong Soo said nothing. 

"Why?"

"..."

"I thought the person you would be mad at would have been Kwan—"

"You know what happened?" Dong Soo interrupted sharply.

Woon nodded slowly. "The other kids told me," he admitted. Then, a sly grin crossed his lips, and he said, "Of course, with some encouragement on my and Sa Mo's parts. They spilled every last detail."

Dong Soo scoffed and started fiddling with his blanket. "Kwan is an arse."

And to his surprise, Woon didn't rebuke him or flinch at the language usage or look shocked at all. He was sure the other boy would have sent him a glare or two. Instead, Woon nodded slightly. "He is. And though I know the whole story, I'd like to hear it from you," he stated slowly. "Of course, I'd first like to know why you are mad at me."

Dong Soo slumped, not wanting to engage that conversation just yet. Well, better now than later, he supposed. It's not like doing so later would make the situation any better. And with uncertainty and confusion displayed so blatantly on Woon's face, he figured he owed his friend at least an explanation.

"You don't like me," Dong Soo blurted out, knowing how false and petty the statement sounded. But he didn't quite want to admit that he was still waiting around for an absolution.

Woon blinked. "Why would you think that?"

Dong Soo muttered something inarticulately. 

"What?" Woon pushed to hear, eyebrows knitting together as he leaned over.

"...I said, 'you still haven't forgiven me'..." he finally admitted grumpily.

Woon's mouth opened and closed again, and he retreated back to his space. "Oh..." he started, leaning back some more. "Oh..." he repeated, processing the words in his mind and interpreting it. "...but I have. I thought you knew..."

"Knew what? I can't read your mind, Woon-ah. I mean, I told myself you weren't mad at me anymore, but then you never said so!" Dong Soo bit out harshly, lips trembling barely. Frustration joined with a hint of vulnerability and danced in his eyes. "And then all those other kids were laughing at me when Kwan kept saying all those things and...I don't know...It felt like no one was on my side in that moment. I just felt really alone, I guess. Everything sucked twice over," his tirade ended with him crumpling slightly.

Woon dropped his gaze and slumped a bit, a touch of guilt creeping over. "I'm sorry. But I already forgave you ages ago. When I quoted Confucius...?" he prompted, trying to reach out and uncover their point of miscommunication.

"You told me it would take a while to forget!" Dong Soo countered heatedly, remembering Woon's disappointing yet hopeful words clearly.

Woon's face froze comically before he burst out laughing. "I meant that it would take some time for me to...you know...sort of get over it. I already forgave you though."

Dong Soo scoffed, "Well excuse me for not understanding your ambiguous meaning."

Woon shook his head in dismay. "I'm sorry. I suppose it was misleading," he chuckled. "Though in retrospect, everything makes sense now—why you walked around like a kicked puppy all the time—"

"I did not! And I resent the use of that expression! When Sanai gets kicked, she yaps and bites my leg!"

"Well if _you_ kicked her, of course she would."

"I didn't do it on purpose!"

Dong Soo harrumphed, crossing his arms childishly. 

Woon grinned. "Alright, fine. That expression will be stricken out of our conversations permanently," he placated indulgently. 

Dong Soo turned back around. "That's better," he acknowledged with pout. A few idle seconds passed by. "So..." he began tentatively, "...are you 'over' it now?"

Woon didn't answer right away. A few moments later, he sighed. "Yeah...yeah, I've been 'over' it for a while, too. It's just that..." he trailed off, pink suddenly dusting his cheeks.

Dong Soo blinked to see if he was seeing clearly and edged closer to the other's face. "Woon-ah?" he inquired suspiciously.

Woon cleared his throat quietly and looked away, mumbling something that didn't quite reach Dong Soo's ear.

"What are you saying?" Dong Soo prodded again, scooting closer, curiosity now pulling him by the nose upon seeing Woon's somewhat conflicted expression.

"...It felt awkward..." Woon confessed, pulling at his tunic and toying with a wayward string. "After I forgave you and got over that incident, I remembered the events that led up to it and...remembered...the awkwardness."

Dong Soo deflated, a twinge pulling at his heart. "Oh," he let out, grimacing at the first recall of that awkward month and Sa Mo's embarrassing revelation since a while ago. 

_"Yah inuma, you're gonna drill a hole in his head if you continue to stare at him the way you have been doing the past few days."_

Dong Soo opened his mouth and took a deep breath, determined to come clean to Woon once and for all—

"I'm sorry I made you feel so awkward during that time," Woon interjected before Dong Soo could talk, causing the latter to choke on empty air and salvage his dignity by pretending to cough. "After Sa Mo said _that_ , I was so embarrassed and thought you were put off and so—"

"Wait," Dong Soo cut in, absolutely lost. "What do you mean _you_ were so embarrassed and that _I_ was put off? Shouldn't it be the other way around?"

Woon stared at him, reflecting his confusion. "No? Sa Mo basically told you I was staring...and then you blushed, so I thought you were embarrassed by what I was doing, but..." he trailed off, his expression slowly morphing to one of understanding. He turned to Dong Soo with wonder. "Were _you_ staring at me too?"

Dong Soo's lips twitched downwards. "Yes, duh. I thought we established that. So why were—wait, 'too'?" he suddenly cried out.

Woon let out a small laugh. "I thought Sa Mo was talking to me, telling me to stop staring at you. But you—"

"—thought Sa Mo was talking to _me_ , telling me to stop staring at _you_ ," Dong Soo finished and echoed back with a completely different meaning. He blinked. "So wait, who _was_ Sa Mo talking to, then? If we were...both staring at each other all the time..." he rushed through the last part.

Woon pulled a thoughtful face then let out a ghost of a smile. "Maybe he was talking to us both."

Somewhere inside the village, Sa Mo let out a loud sneeze.

"Che, inuma...brats must be talking about me..."

* * *

Dong Soo's shoulder managed to heal rather neatly without much trouble. Within three days, he was able to remove the bandages and immediately rolled his arms around to stretch out his muscles.

Dong Soo had not talked to or seen anyone from Dae Ho's group since that incident. Although he didn't really have any intentions on avoiding them, he didn't have any active interest in confronting them either. The fact that most of them cheered Kwan on against Dong Soo sat rather sourly in the pit of his stomach. And with the exception of Chung Hee, the others didn't even say anything let alone do a thing.

Still, while _he_ may not have any intentions on avoiding them, Woon certainly seemed to. The other boy was rather adept at diverting Dong Soo's attention whenever they neared the group or the group neared them. Dong Soo didn't even realize his best friend had been doing so until much later. He was positive that once or twice, Woon had thrown cold glares at his other friends, which made him a bit giddy inside.

If there was one good thing out of this fall-out with his friends, it was that Woon was back to normal. The two boys had a good laugh about their predicament after the revelation. They had come to a silent agreement not to bring up the topic of their mutual staring again. 

"Ugh. This is really...really...gross. Is that mud or feces? Why is it so much grosser than usual?" Dong Soo bit out as the repugnant and nauseating odor wafted his way and squishy noises sounded as he stepped around the pen.

Woon, for some unfair reason—Dong Soo noted sourly, seemed to retain his cleanliness despite standing in the midst of all that filth. "Well it rains more during the spring...humidity and water probably exacerbated this mess," Woon rationalized with an air of nonchalance, as though he was purely spouting facts and their current surrounding didn't phase him in the slightest. Though in all probability, that was most likely what it was.

Dong Soo was going to let out a dramatic sigh, but because he had to _breathe in_ first before sighing, he ended up getting a lovely drift of pure unadulterated pig-filth, causing him to choke hard enough for tears to come out. 

Woon shook his head at Dong Soo's antics and continued to shovel the manure from the ground into a wheel-barrow.

"I'm injured! At this rate my wound will rip open again, and your wonderful healing will be shot to waste!" Dong Soo lamented loudly, flapping his arms about partly in a dramatic attempt to gain Woon's sympathy and partly to shoo away the disgusting smell.

"You don't have any wound to rip open."

"Aish chincha...I think I'm allergic to filth. Why else would the world be spinning around me?"

Woon sighed and decidedly left the other boy to his 'woe-is-me' rants. He resumed his repetitive motions and shoveled pile after pile of dung into the wheel-barrow.

"Ah!" 

Woon paused and looked up to see Dong Soo glaring at his feet. He looked down at the target of the other's stare and then back up at Dong Soo. "Is there something wrong with my feet?" he asked.

"It's dry."

"What?"

"You're standing on the only patch of dry dirt in this entire pen, Woon-ah!"

Woon glanced down at his relatively clean boots and blinked. Indeed, he was standing on a dry little area of dirt. He then looked over to Dong Soo's feet, which were covered in mud and filth, among other things. "Ah."

" _Ah_? Really, _that's_ all you have to say? Yah inuma—"

A sudden round of cheering went up in the air somewhere nearby, and Dong Soo fell silent. He had fallen still and was gazing emptily at the direction of the sound. Now that they were quiet, they could hear the smacking sound of a ball being kicked by various pairs of feet. 

Before Woon had a chance to say anything, Dong Soo began obediently shoveling the manure. Uncomforted by this drastic change of mood yet unable to yield a satisfying response, Woon decided to say nothing and continue shoveling. 

Half an hour later, when the wheel barrows were finally full and the dung cleaned up from around the pen, Woon dusted his hands and said, "Alright, let's go."

Dong Soo stared at him, a hint of incomprehension crossing his face. "Don't we have to go dump these in farmer Bae's fields?" 

Woon smiled lightly and shook his head. "We can do that later. I have something I want to show you."

* * *

It took a little prodding and encouragement from Woon, but he finally succeeded in nudging Dong Soo onto the little rocky trail leading away from the village. Dong Soo had inquired where Woon was taking him repetitively, but Woon ignored him and trudged ahead, stopping occasionally to ensure that the other was still following behind and catching up.

They bypassed the branching trail that wound away from the main one down to the ravine and headed up another hill. Dong Soo had taken to observing the scenery around him, noting the vivid allure spring's touch brought to the hills. The sunny green grass called out to him in whispers, waving at him with its willowy blades. Dong Soo looked to his left and noticed some cliffs forming on the horizon.

"This is it." Woon finally stopped on top of the hill and smiled, glancing at Dong Soo and then jutting his chin towards his other side. Dong Soo met Woon's eyes curiously and gradually made his way to the top where Woon stood.

He gasped. 

Before him was a giant river, lapping at the base of their hill and reaching out across the other side to touch the cliffs. "Is this—" he started, unable to tear his eyes away from the huge body of water.

"This is where the creek flows to," Woon explained, cutting in. "This is my favorite spot," he continued, eyes lost in the vast array of blue and green before him. A tender smile adorned his facials. Dong Soo looked down briefly, not wanting to get pulled in by the gentle expression. "When I'm at this place, I always feel better," he shared with the other, smiling so brightly as the wind played with his hair. Dong Soo had never seen Woon look so carefree.

He suddenly looked away again, sitting down and letting disappointment well up within him as he realized that he only just now learned of Woon's favorite place. What kind of a friend was he? He thought bitterly. And to never have seen such an expression on Woon's face...

A poke to his forehead jerked him out of his thoughts. He looked up to find Woon squatting in front of him. "What are you doing?" Woon asked.

"...Just thinking..." Dong Soo mumbled noncommittally. 

"Obviously dangerous for you."

"Hey!" Dong Soo snapped up. "I resent that comment!" he huffed out.

Woon grinned. "That's more like it," he dictated and then plopped down next to Dong Soo before doing something unexpected—he laid his head on Dong Soo's lap.

Dong Soo peered at Woon speechlessly, the desire to say something evident—most likely a protest about not being a pillow, but the words were stubborn and remain trapped in his throat. His pulse sped up rapidly for a brief moment before settling down a bit. It was highly possible he was blushing, though Dong Soo couldn't be sure. He was torn between feeling uncomfortable and feeling at peace. Though either ways, he wasn't about to tell Woon to get up.

"Just relax for a bit, ok?" Woon's quiet voice drifted into his ear, and Dong Soo found his body responding to the command. Within minutes, he found himself dozing off amidst the sea of grass to the sun's warm rays enveloping him, the gentle breeze tickling his face and Woon's soft breathing in sync with his own.

 


	8. Chapter 8

The first thought that wholly registered in Dong Soo's mind as he emerged from his relaxing slumber was that there was an unfamiliar weight pressed against his abdomen. He strained to lift his head just barely off the ground and scratched the back of it with a hand; his hair teemed of little flakes of grass, which were determined to cling onto their new niche. He glanced down his torso—which took some effort—to realize that the unfamiliar weight was Woon, who did not seem to be disturbed by his movements and continued to doze, lips parted innocently and face free of the usual tightness Woon usually wore.

A smile pulled at his lips, and he had to reign in the sheer amount of _happy_ that bubbled in his chest, lest he jostle the younger boy and wake him. Although his bottom was beginning to protest at the numbness spreading across it, he didn't budge from his position and only shifted to employ his arms as a pillow for his head. From this vantage point, he was able to study his friend's facial features rather closely, and Dong Soo found that he enjoyed it immensely.

He let his eyes trail over Woon's still form—the other boy had both arms draped onto his stomach and his head lolled slightly towards Dong Soo. His chest rose and fell steadily and had a soothing effect on Dong Soo who was watching. Although Woon's somewhat wavy locks framed and covered part of his face, it didn't hinder Dong Soo's ability to memorize the contour of Woon's face.

Suddenly, a mischievous idea popped into his head. 

He re-angled his head and tried to crane forward a smidgen without jostling Woon. Then he formed a small a very tiny hole with his lips—the same way he would while whistling—and blew gently and steadily into Woon's ear, pausing and snickering silently when his friend shifted uncomfortably with a frown and turned his head so that his ear was now pressed against Dong Soo's stomach.

He _really_ had to contain himself from snickering—it wouldn't do for the other boy to wake up due to a shaking pillow. This time, he had to carefully prop himself up on his elbows and aim for Woon's other ear—the uncovered one—and made to blow again. 

"...If you do that again, I'm going to punch you," came Woon's breathy but assertive voice. 

Dong Soo couldn't hold it back any longer and broke out in full blown cackling. Woon cracked open an eye, took one glance at Dong Soo and sighed, sitting up and rubbing his eye blearily.

"You...you...why can't you wake up like a normal person? You—" He giggled some more. "—you scared the crap out of me—" Oh dear, he was having difficulty breathing. His abs were definitely going to be sore later tonight.

"So you laughed? I scared you, so you laughed?" Woon questioned Dong Soo's sanity at the moment, trying to grasp the older boy's logic flow but coming up short. If you were scared into laughter, didn't that count towards some form of insanity?

Dong Soo waved him off, finally calming down enough to sit back up again—he had attempted a few times earlier, but was laughing so hard he fell back anytime he tried. He was still chuckling here and there while playing catch-up with his breathing, but the moment seemed to have passed. He lifted a finger to brush a few stray tears out of the corners of his eyes. "Oh...that was...ah..." Dong Soo finally fell quiet, though a dreamy smile still lingered happily on his face.

A moment of quietude passed before Woon chuckled softly. He beamed one of his rare smiles and tilted his head high towards the sky, squinting as the sun—which had begun its descent and would rest in another hour or two—shimmered through a few lazy clouds. It wasn't long before he had to look back down thanks to the crinkle that had formed near the base of his neck.

He looked instead to his right where the other boy sat leaning back on both elbows, then brought his gaze back down to the center of his lap where he had been idly fiddling with two crispy blades of grass. His eyes found the horizon again, keen on discerning the myriad of colors that blended to create the painting-like scenery before them. The two boys remained that way for a good few minutes or so—each lost in his own thoughts and enjoying the moment of peace. When Woon cast another glance at Dong Soo, the other's eyes were distant and unfocused and he seemed to be lost and wandering aimlessly in some thought or memory. 

"Did the things they say bother you that much?"

Dong Soo's distant and relaxed appearance started to cave into an expression of discomfort. The boy suddenly eyed the tips of his dirty fingernails fascinatingly, and he shifted his jaw around before speaking. "Not...well, that...it's..." He eventually trailed off indefinitely. His lips kept moving and forming shapes, but no sound could escape the invisible barrier in his throat. He gulped. _Yes_ , his mind supplied while his voice denied.

Woon turned himself around and scooted up next to Dong Soo so that they were both overlooking the river. "When I was seven, the caravan my eomeoni and I were with was raided by bandits, and my eomeoni died while protecting me." Peripherally, he noticed Dong Soo turning to stare at him sharply—Woon had never really spoken much about himself, so Dong Soo must have been pleasantly surprised that the younger boy was opening up like this. Ignoring the penetrating gaze or simply unbothered by it, he continued. "They stabbed her twice. Once for not giving into their demands and once for shielding me." Here, he paused before adding on as an afterthought, "My eomeoni had been a merchant, did you know?" 

He phrased the question more as a comment than a question, but Dong Soo shook his head dumbly anyways. "That..."

Woon waved off whatever it was that Dong Soo might have asked and reached up to brush a few idle locks away from his face. "I know...who's ever heard of a female merchant? But that's what Sa Mo told me. He tells me all sorts of stories about my eomeoni—how strong of a woman she was, how radiant she was, how warm she was, how determined and lively she was." His breath seemed to cut off oddly then, but Dong Soo didn't pay too much mind to it. "I think he tends to exaggerate though. Some of his stories don't make sense and sometimes contradict each other." Woon let out an airy scoff. Indeed, the butcher took great pleasure in storytelling and on multiple occasions made his mother out to be some sort of divine princess-like figure. And when Sa Mo told stories of the day he first met Woon's mother, the circumstances always changed. One time, it was on the marketplace. Another time, it had been through mutual acquaintances. All he knew was that they met sometime during their childhood or adolescence. 

"How did Sa Mo know your eomeoni?" 

Woon smiled and relayed what just passed his mind to his friend. Dong Soo's grin grew wider and wider with every word. "...So really, I only know that however they met, Sa Mo was instantly admiration-stricken by my eomeoni," Woon concluded, a light expression lifting his facials as he recalled how lively and young Sa Mo always looked while talking about his mother.

The older boy silently took in all of Woon's words. "Tell me more about her, your eomeoni."

Woon tilted his head to the side thoughtfully, swiftly sifting through memories of stories...stories of so long ago and of things he never could nor would remember. He smiled secretively upon selecting one strand of memory and swirled the flavor of it around on his tongue before deciding to share. It was one of his favorites, because it had Sa Mo blushing like a cherry blossom in the spring when he told it. It consisted of one youthful Sa Mo trying to 'woo' Woon's mother with a painting of the summer flowers, except the creation of the artwork was due largely in part to squashed bug guts. To her merit, Woon's mother did not run away shrieking in horror, but instead tapped Sa Mo on the nose, telling him she liked it.

By the end of the story, Dong Soo had been cackling gleefully and laughing unrestrainedly. Woon smiled, glad that the other found the same amount of amusement if not more in this story as he had.

"Eomeoni hated sweets, apparently. So much so that she once threw a whole handful at Sa Mo's face when he tried to offer some to her. She apologized for it afterwards, of course," Woon was now saying, having picked up another story to narrate. 

He spoke until the sun had climbed down another inch or two on the horizon—about what his mother was like, about what Sa Mo's relationship was with his mother, about things that happened and things that didn't...

He had so many stories of so many kinds, ranging from sad ones to funny. Sometimes he included himself in the stories. "Apparently, I was a troublemaker as a child," he said at one point, which Dong Soo refused to believe. "I was punished heavily for eating that peach," had Dong Soo snorting that it sounded like something he—Dong Soo—was likely to do.

"Do you miss her?"

And then suddenly, Woon's voice was cold, cold ice. "Miss her? How could I miss someone I never knew?" His facials darkened and a brief flicker of something indiscernible seemed to transcend his face, but it vanished in the same instant it came.

"W-Woon-ah?" Dong Soo frowned at Woon, concern drawn up on his features. "Are you alright?" He rested one hand tentatively on Woon's knee. Woon seemed to relax to the touch and the hard expression melted some.

Dong Soo waited until he deemed it safe to speak up again. "You didn't know your mother? But you were talking about—"

Woon quickly shook his head. "They're all stories I heard secondhand from Sa Mo. I don't remember anything from before I was eight." The cold had evaporated from his voice, leaving a residue of melancholy. His eyes sought out Dong Soo's. "Kind of like you."

"Kind of—Wait does that mean I won't ever remember? And why did you never tell me before?" Dong Soo asked rapidly in a panic. If he never remembered who he was...what would he do? What could he do? In the back of his mind, he'd always held onto some form of belief that one day his memories would return to him like a sea turtle to its origin of birth—his memories were simply on vacation!

"Well for one, precisely because of the way you're acting now." Woon poked Dong Soo in the forehead to silence him. "You would have jumped to conclusions and gone crazy on me," he explained, not untruthfully. Dong Soo blinked and appeared to want to contest, but Woon offered him no opportunity. "Your memory loss was concussion based. I'm sure that in due time, and with the right triggers, you'll be able to remember. If it's that important to you, I actually thought that one day, we might be able to venture to the capital and look around—provided you still didn't have your memories back. It certainly would be nice to leave this little village for a change."

Dong Soo let out a small 'oh'. Then he let out a sly grin. "Aw...Woon-ah is so nice, thinking of me so far into the future..." He then proceeded—with a big sloppy smile—to place his chin on Woon's shoulder and leaned into the other boy, heaving all his weight lazily onto the latter. 

Woon's lips twitched downwards and he pushed the other off of him in mild annoyance. "Only you can get into your head such nonsensical ideas." The statement did little to deter Dong Soo's display of happy emotions. "Anyways...Sa Mo told me that I lost my memories probably because...because I _wanted_ to lose my memories," he finished quietly.

Now the other boy sat up seriously. "You _wanted_ to? Can you do that? But why? I mean, unless it..." For once, it seemed the Dong Soo was able to put the pieces together by himself and wisely fell silent.

Regardless, Woon deigned a reply necessary and shrugged in a rather nonchalant manner. "I don't know. Knowing why would require knowing what happened. It was probably due to the bandit raid. Maybe I saw something really bad. Sa Mo said my eomeoni had shielded me and told me not to look, but...maybe..." _...maybe I saw her die in a gruesome way,_ were the unfinished words that died on the tip of his tongue. "Sa Mo doesn't like to say much. And I've learned that not everything is always worth knowing." More than once, the idea that he may have seen something else entirely swirled around in his mind. But who could he have asked?

Dong Soo was stumped. He had never known that his friend had such a similar past to him. Yet at the same time, they were so different. Dong Soo would have given a right arm to regain his memories, while Woon would have given one to retain his ignorance—something he knew Woon normally loathed and despised over all else.

"You still want to know though, right?"

Woon didn't reply.

"Sometimes I feel like there's more to me than a butcher's ward with bad luck," he said instead, a torrent of disarraying and conflicting thoughts clutching his mind. There were many things that didn't make sense and numerous questions left unanswered. Sa Mo only answered a few if any of them, but Woon had often suspected that even those diamonds of knowledge he picked up were actually fool's glass, easily shattered the moment it touched with truth.

But it didn't matter. He had long since stopped inquiring after such things. He reached for his satchel—he had grabbed it on the way out before they left—and carefully brought out his mother's red cloth.

Dong Soo felt his eyes go wide. "Uwah! That's a really silky and expensive handkerchief you have there!" He nearly asked to see it until he noticed the way Woon held the handkerchief, as though he was torn between casting it off into the wind and wrapping it up quickly to protect it from harm.

"It was my mother's. For me." Woon wordlessly held the cloth out to Dong Soo with one hand. His gaze was still trained at the ground. Dong Soo received the cloth hesitantly and gently opened it up. " _'To my Son, Living is your greatest triumph'_ is what it says," Woon spoke quietly. 

Had it been any other time in any other setting, Dong Soo would have sniped back with a quick comment like _'I can read, you dummy!'_ , but this wasn't the time for such shenanigans, so he could only nod quietly. "What does it mean?" Dong Soo settled for asking, curiosity genuinely roused by the characters. He took another glance at it before returning it to its owner, who promptly folded it up and stowed it away.

"Who knows? I just find it ironic, considering my 'Living' is what brought so much suffering to this village," he let out a small noise that was halfway between a laugh of disbelief and a laugh of misery. Woon shook his head back and forth slowly with a sense of detached sadness.

The other boy frowned as he began to develop a hunch as to what Woon was talking about or referring to. "What?" he asked in a tone suggesting he thought he heard wrongly, and waited for Woon to deny his ridiculous notions because there was no way that made _sense_. "What do you mean?" 

Woon didn't answer right away. He remained as still as a corpse and stared unwaveringly out at the river for the longest time before making the effort to reply. "Do you know what the adults of the village call me? Have called me since I was nine?" His voice took on a dimmed tone of anger and hurt wrapped in mild incredulity.

Dong Soo shook his head silently, though he knew Woon wasn't looking and wouldn't see.

Woon smiled a self-deprecating smile and he drew a breath before saying, "' _Agmaui jasig._ '" 

Demon child.

The other boy froze before his features swiftly morphed into those of confusion and indignation. Pure anger seemed to take root at the very core of his being and, unable to lash out at the perpetrators of the incident, he lashed out at its victim. "Why?" he screamed at Woon, who seemed slightly taken aback at the degree of affront Dong Soo had taken to this. "How could they call you that? Why do they do that? I thought it was all a stupid child's thing, saying all those things, but...but you're telling me it was the adults who did this? To you?" 

Dong Soo was so upset and distraught that he had started trembling. His fists were balled up so tightly his knuckles turned bone-white. He kept repeating 'why' to himself, as though saying it enough times would not only give him the answer he wanted, but change the reality of the situation. "Why?" he repeated again to Woon.

Thus Woon relayed the story of the stranger's visit to Dong Soo. He mentioned how he never found out the stranger's identity, how the stranger had stared at him with those cold eyes, how he wasn't sure if it was the stranger who started the rumor or what, and how either ways, the next day found Woon labeled as the 'demon-child'.

"That's it? Because of some stranger's words, they ostracized you like this?" Dong Soo huffed out in disbelief. He had calmed plenty thanks to the slow place Woon had done his storytelling, but he was still miffed on Woon's behalf and found the whole thing utterly ridiculous, which—Woon didn't say aloud, but—the younger boy was extremely touched by and grateful for.

"Before he left, he said to me, ' _The Killing Star shines over you'._ And ever since then on, all sorts of misfortunate things happened around me to other people. That's why people started avoiding me. That's why Kwan called me a ' _killer_ ' that day." The last sentence finished in a near-whisper.

The blood drained from Dong Soo's face as he realized what Woon was talking about. "That was—" The bottom of his stomach felt as though it had suddenly vanished along with his ability to breathe. "Oh gods..." he whispered faintly, repulsed by his actions as he recalled from that day. His own laughter rang hauntingly in his ears, and the image of Woon's horror-stricken and betrayal-ridden face danced in front of him tauntingly, terrifyingly, nauseatingly. The entire depth of that scenario finally came crashing in on him and the enlightenment was so heavy he could choke. "I didn't...I had no idea...I-I'm sorry..." he spluttered, looking ready to puke on his own shoes.

"Dong Soo-ya! Yah Baek Dong Soo!" Woon yelled while cupping the other's cheeks with his hands. "Look at me," he demanded not unkindly, his eyes trying to catch Dong Soo's. "Look at me," he repeated the command, this time relaxing a little when Dong Soo's unfocused orbs finally seemed to recognize Woon and gradually trained in on him.

"Woon-ah?" Dong Soo was perplexed as to why Woon was holding onto his face like that. Was he saying something?

"...already forgave you."

"What?" Dong Soo asked numbly.

"I said, I already forgave you for that, didn't I?" Woon gave him a tight smile.

Dong Soo didn't respond. Instead, he started sniffling. Once. Twice. Until unsteady breaths escaped him and fat tears started leaking out of his eyes.

Woon blinked, completely shocked into immobilization at the sight of a sniffing Dong Soo before him. "Why are _you_ crying?" Disbelief colored his tone and he sat there gaping as the other was desperately trying to catch his tears with his ragged sleeve, alternating between his right and left hands like a young child. Woon couldn't help but grin at the sight.

"B-because!" Dong Soo tried to straighten up and puff out his chest in a dignified manner, which was rather challenging given his runny nose and puffy eyes leaking snot and tears respectively. "Woon-ah is too nice...and so much c-crap happened to you yet...you-you _still_...still remain..." A laugh escaped him. "Thanks, Woon-ah. Hearing about your shitty life made me feel so much better about mine. Now I feel like all my problems are moot." He wrinkled his nose and grinned like an idiot.

He received a good punch in the shoulder followed by a smack on the head for that comment. "See if I ever spill my secrets to you ever again..." Woon mumbled resentfully, but failing to repress the twitch of a smile from spreading on his lips. 

Both boys grinned lightly at each other.

"But now you know, right? I have no more secrets," Woon confessed candidly, reaching up to run a hand through his hair. "Let me just tell you one more thing though. I never knew my abeoji. Sa Mo said he rarely met him, and that eomeoni never talked about him, so...I know about my real abeoji even less than I know about eomeoni. Sa Mo is who I remember raising me and feeding me and sheltering me. He's the one who let me read Confucian Analects and keep my dog and defended me against the others. I don't see what my real abeoji could have done to surpass that."

A moment of silence passed between them before Dong Soo replied. "I know. I know why you told me all of that. I...Kwan's words don't bother me that much anymore. I wish I could be more like you, looking to everything around me now and not dwelling on the past. Some rocks are better left unturned. I'm happy with who I am now, so it doesn't matter who I was in the past." He paused and stared off contemplatively into the dusk-flamed sky. "But Woon-ah...don't you still want to know? Don't you still _need_ to know?" Their eyes locked, and Dong Soo used that connection to burn intensely into the core of Woon's soul. His own eyes screamed with desperation and glimmered with determination. "You never answered me before either. You still want to know though, don't you? Who you were, what really happened, and why." Again, Woon didn't answer. Though this time, it was because he couldn't, rather than because he wouldn't. There was nothing he could have said, because Dong Soo already knew. So instead, he gritted his teeth and held a mask of indifference. 

"I will no longer let the past bother me, but Woon-ah, you can't expect me to just ignore it completely. And neither can you."

"..."

"You hate your parents, don't you?" Dong Soo discerned quietly.

Woon whipped around and stared at him with a moment of incredulity before turning away. "I don't... _hate_...I just _—_ " He dropped his gaze. "How...how did you know?" he mumbled with a grimace. 

"There was no affection when you spoke of your eomeoni. Only when you mentioned Sa Mo. Why?" 

"...I don't...they abandoned me." 

"How? You said your mother died protecting you; that is the farthest thing from—"

"She _died_! I...why did she have to protect me? Bandits don't usually kill women and children. They sell us into slavery. Was protecting me from that worth her life? It's stupid! And because of me...because of me, she died. Another person, because of me...Perhaps the first..."

A pang of sympathy went through Dong Soo's heart as he began to understand the insecurities his friend had stowed away. His chest tightened as he observed the way his friend shrunk in on himself vulnerably.

"And I'll never know...I'll never know what my fate is...is it really to bring Death? Why did my eomeoni write that living was my greatest triumph? Because my existence ruins others'?"

"That's not true!" A pair of firm hands found Woon's shoulders and grasped them tightly. Dong Soo faced the other boy squarely and forced him to stare deep into Dong Soo's eyes. "If there is one thing I believe in, Woon-ah," he spoke assertively, brown eyes latching onto Woon's own and anchoring the other's attention securely, "...it's that we create our own Fate. Don't believe in the stupid things other people say. Weren't you the best at that? You never let what those other kids say bother you much, so why does the mention of 'Fate' make you tremble like this?" Concern flooded his features as he felt the slight tremor traveling through Woon's body. What was his friend so scared of?

Woon didn't answer. He had broken their mutual gaze and now stared resolutely at the patch of grass to his side. He angled his head so that the wind picked up his hair and conveniently shielded his eyes from Dong Soo's piercing glare.

"It bothers you, doesn't it?" Dong Soo asked softly, catching Woon's nearly imperceptible wince. "You hypocrite, always telling me not to be bothered by taunts, when really you've taken each and every word thrown at you and bottled it up inside." Dong Soo sighed and released him with a slight shove, emotionally drained and disappointed—he wasn't certain if the disappointment came from Woon, from the villagers, or just from life in general. One moment, everything seemed right again, and the next...

Woon didn't deny the accusations thrown at him.

"Well then let me tell you something, Woon-ah. Whatever your 'Fate' or 'Destiny' or whatever the crap you're scared of is, I'll help you overcome it, yeah? No one is willing to bully my buddy with me, Baek Dong Soo, around." He offered up a meek grin.

Although Woon didn't seem completely convinced, he gave the lightest of nods and the tension appeared to recede from his body.

Dong Soo's grin faltered—he'd been expecting a snipe or a sarcastic reply, not a subdued acquiescence. But beggars couldn't be choosers, he supposed, and decided to take Woon's response at face value.

Quickly scanning the sky, Dong Soo estimated it to be around seven as the swollen evening sun had grown weak and painted the heavens in warm pastels of red and orange and purple. It was truly a beautiful and melancholic sight that could easily entrap all thoughts and worries and, like the swirls of clouds spinning into the horizon, wisp away burdens of large and small. Indeed, it was precisely why Woon was currently mesmerized, Dong Soo noted as he studied his friend discreetly. 

What was he thinking? Dong Soo wanted to know.

"Shall we go home?"

Woon turned to him and looked at him curiously. Then, his facials relaxed into a light smile. Whatever had preoccupied his thoughts just now seemed to have evaporated, joining the setting sun. "Yeah, let's go home."

Dong Soo grinned.

Home sounded good.


	9. Chapter 9

"What?"

Dong Soo wasn't sure if his ears had been functioning properly; bafflement had cast an immobilization spell over him, and he was a rather odd-looking sight, squatted on the ground with his knees pushed apart and torso edging slightly forward for balance, elbows tucked into his sides and his two hands raised up in a poor imitation of a puppy begging for scraps.

"I said, I came across Dae Ho's posse today, and he says they want to apologize." Woon massaged an eye with the heel of his hand and tiny lines appeared between his brows. There was an unforgiving sting in the corner of his eye that was childishly resisting Woon's efforts for relief. 

The other collapsed in reluctance and groaned overtly, causing Sanai, who he had been playing with and was the reason for his laughable pose earlier, to yelp and scramble away in discontent. She began growling and barking and shuffling back and forth, eyeing her offender warily and calculating the best strategy for retaliation.

"Oh come on! We were getting along just fine! Don't tell me you're back to hating me again, you stupid dog," Dong Soo huffed spitefully, tossing his hair back crudely and wrinkling his nose at the itch that developed due to one strand of irritable hair. 

Sanai whimpered and her wolf-like ears flattened immediately at the harsh reprimand, and she scampered across the yard and found shelter behind Woon's legs. Two seconds later after she deemed to coast clear of harm, she squeezed her head out from between Woon's boots, stuck out her tongue and wagged her tail happily, all the while presenting Dong Soo her best innocent look. 

Dong Soo responded by sticking out his tongue and sneering at Sanai. Woon stopped rubbing his eye for a second to send him a disapproving glare and kneeled down to gather Sanai into his arms. "Don't mind him, Sanai, Dong Soo is just being mean. We don't need to pay attention to meanies, do we?" Woon cradled the puppy in the nook of one arm and supported her legs with his thigh. He scratched the backs of her ears, and a happy rumble resounded from her throat. The itch in his eye forced him to pause and rub at it again, this time with the back of his wrist.

"What's wrong with your eye?" Dong Soo asked scowling. He moved a bit closer, ignoring Sanai's yap of warning, and peered intrusively at the other's face. "Are you crying?" Astonishment followed by worry and fury overcame his features. "Was it Dae Ho and them? Was it Kwan? Did they make you cry? And they wanted to apologize to me? Those bastards—"

Dong Soo's words were bitten off quite painfully as Woon chucked an idle bucket at the former's head, effectively halting him on his warpath out of the house and into the streets in search of a brawl that would only have ended pitifully for him. 

"Ow!" Dong Soo cried out hurtfully and pivoted around looking like a kicked puppy. "Why did you do that?" He gently massaged the unfortunate part of his head the bucket had homed in on and pouted heavily, recoiling when Woon threw him a withering glare.

"They're your _friends_. Shouldn't you allow them to apologize rather than jump them at any opportunity you have? And I wasn't crying...I chopped up some onions earlier and—"

"Those bastard onions..."

This time Woon scoffed and rolled his eyes, a subtle grimace manifesting on his face. "While I appreciate the effort, you don't have to go around protecting me like some distressed damsel..." 

"But I _have_ to protect you, Woon-ah. _You_ protect _me._ It's only fair." Dong Soo shot him a charming grin and Woon had been rendered speechless at the display of pure oozing good will. The younger boy couldn't settle between gratitude and mortification, but decided that a smidgen of each couldn't have been unhealthy. 

"I protect you from your stupidity," Woon retorted at last, warding off the warm feeling in his stomach with a sharp jab at Dong Soo's character.

Dong Soo didn't appear the least fazed by the rebuttal and snorted, "You know you love me."

Refusing to comment on that statement, Woon reminded, "So what will you do about Kwan and Dae Ho and them?"

"Ignore them for the rest of my long-lasting life."

When he received no comeback from the other boy, Dong Soo knew that it would be because the latter was sending him a full-on glare of disapproval. So he decidedly refused to look.

"I'm just kidding! I'll go find them and see what they have to say, and if I don't like it..."

Once again, Dong Soo could feel the weight of an intense piercing gaze, travelling directly through his skin and into his organs, boiling them slowly with shame...

"Aish...chincha! If they do apologize sincerely, I will accept it maturely. Happy?" He scrunched up his face and threw it at Woon, eyeing the other boy warily out of his peripherals. 

Woon appeared satisfied by the promise and a ghostly smile hovered on his lips. Sanai shifted uncomfortably in his lap. "Good. They're near the field by the well playing gonggi[1]. If you go now and come back around supper time, I will tell Sa Mo you're off running errands. If you come back any time before then, I will tell Sa Mo you went to ajumma's house to beg for sweets again."

Dong Soo's mouth fell open. "That's not fair!" he protested flabbergasted. 

A smirk slowly twisted from the smile on Woon's face. "You can go now."

* * *

After twenty minutes of meandering about the streets kicking up dust and twirling idle twigs, Dong Soo let out a frustrated yell and pulled at his hair and face. Ignoring the repulsive and startled looks that his outcry drew, he plopped down on the side of the street with his elbows resting on his knees.

Stupid Woon...He had no doubts the other boy would make good on his promises, so it was best he did as he was told and sought out his friends. But never let it be said that Baek Dong Soo was someone who did things at the beck and call of others, so he was determined to prolong this confrontation as long as possible. Just because the stuff they did no longer bothered him on a deep note, doesn't mean he couldn't still be mad at them. Conclusion: he was rightfully displeased with the other party in a mature and dignified manner.

He kicked at a bug that threatened to invade his personal bubble of sulking and jumped to his feet quickly when the bug ended up crawling towards him rather than away. "Aigoo...take that, you stupid bug!" He stomped around on the ground hastily, not caring so much for aiming as much as getting in enough hits to positively render the bug dead. He coughed and spluttered at the dust storm he was kicking up, but smirked triumphantly upon finding his opponent defeated. "Should've run away when you had the chance!" he scoffed self-righteously, straightening out his tunic and patting his outfit to air out the dust. 

"Was it really necessary to squash the poor bug like that?" a voice called out humorously. 

Dong Soo's head whipped up to catch sight of Dae Ho and Chung Hee walking towards him with keen smiles on their faces, a reluctant and uncomfortable Kwan in tow behind them and several other children, all of whom suddenly found a fascinating interest in their surroundings, be it their feet, the ground or old farmer Bae across the street picking at his earwax. 

Dong Soo debated between answering in kind and glaring at the others, but his decision was quickly moot as Dae Ho and Chung Hee seemed to take his silence as a sign of his continuing anger towards them, which wasn't too far off the mark. Chung Hee's sunny smile faltered slightly and turned apologetic and guilty while Dae Ho's fell altogether.

The bigger boy sighed and took a deep breath. "We were hoping to run into you today. I guess Yeo Woon told you?" Receiving a single nod in affirmation, he continued. "There's some apologizing that needs to be done, I suppose. First of all, from all of us as a group. It wasn't right of us to laugh at your...condition like that. Was it, guys?" He turned around to look hard into the eyes of the lot, causing all of them to look away but mumbling various forms of apologies. "What was that?" he asked again in a light tone that was laced with threat. This time, a chortle of more sincere apologies rang out among the group, and Dae Ho looked back at Dong Soo satisfactorily.

Chung Hee gave him an award-winning smile. "And I'm sorry too. I knew it bugged you but...I should've done more, I guess," he confessed full-heartedly and some pink dusted his cheeks. 

"At least you tried, Chung Hee. Don't worry, it wasn't you I was ever mad at," Dong Soo appeased kindly, returning with a grin of his own while glancing from Dae Ho to Kwan, who was still avoiding eye contact. He stared at the latter boy hard. 

The smile on Chung Hee's face dropped a notch or two again, and he hesitantly glanced at Dae Ho to gauge the bigger boy's reaction. Dae Ho didn't seem too moved by the remark and gave a simple nod, accepting the subtle accusation thrown at him. Now both boys turned their attentions fully towards Kwan and awaited his response. "Kwan?" Dae Ho half encouraged and half warned. He purposefully stepped aside just enough to reveal Kwan to Dong Soo but not too much that he couldn't prevent a physical conflict should one arise.

Dae Ho wasn't the only one in the group to sense the growing animosity Kwan had for Dong Soo lately, though nobody knew why. Chung Hee appeared as though he'd rather be anywhere else than here at the moment, and the other children delicately offered Kwan a wider berth. 

"I'm sorry..." Kwan gritted out none too easily as though the words had cost him years of anguish. He exhaled loudly and released his fists, which had been balled up and clenched tightly earlier. "Can we go now?" he asked in a manner suggesting he could care less about being here.

Dae Ho and Chung Hee frowned while Dong Soo appeared impassive. "If you're going to give me a half-arsed apology, I'd rather you not give me one at all," Dong Soo commented dryly without the slightest hint of arrogance or pettiness, just cold hard justice. He didn't take pleasure in the way Kwan's eyes instantaneously transformed into those of a wild beast nor did he take pleasure in the way Kwan was one arm away—Dae Ho's arm, to be certain—from lashing out at him.

"Kwan?" Dae Ho repeated in a low voice, warning the boy not to do anything drastic and suggesting he come up with a better apology. 

Kwan was silent for a few moments, and he glared angrily at Dae Ho, to which the other returned with a stony glance. The latter won the staring contest, and Kwan jerked off Dae Ho's hand, shuffling away to nurse his injured pride.

"Kwan..." Dae Ho's low voice cut through the air again.

"I'm sorry, ok?" Kwan snapped out. "I'm sorry for joking about Dong Soo's memories," he breathed out candidly. "But I'm not sorry for egging him on! It was because of his own idiocy that he couldn't catch a branch properly." He turned fully to Dong Soo with a look of detest. "I still think you're an attention-seeking prat. Acting all silly and idiotic all the time..." Kwan was breathing harshly at the end of his tirade.

"Kwan!" Chung Hee cried out in dismay, trying to figure out how things had gone from resolved to not in one turn of a second. He had silently applauded Kwan for his efforts to manage the difficult apology and now...

"It's ok, Chung Hee." Dong Soo held up a hand to calm the panicky boy. He then turned to Kwan, who was still staring bravely at Dong Soo, daring the boy to lash out at him either physically or verbally. To Kwan's surprise, Dong Soo did neither, instead cracking open a sheepish grin. "Apology accepted!" Dong Soo chirped happily.

A number of the kids looked flabbergasted, and Chung Hee had to withhold the temptation to check if Dong Soo had knocked his head about again. Dae Ho said nothing, but a smirk developed on his lips. Kwan stared at Dong Soo with mortification and incredulity. He was still poised for some sort of surprise attack and stiffened when Dong Soo only reached out to place an arm on his shoulder.

"You're right. It's not your fault for egging me on—I'm the idiot who decided to listen to you. As for acting..." He blinked. "I never even thought of it like that. And didn't you just say I was an idiot? Then how could I be acting?" Kwan might have said something, but as his jaw was currently non-responsively hanging, there was little he could do to forge a comeback. "Anyways, you can go on disliking me in peace. I won't bother you. Everyone is entitled to have their own opinions." He grinned again. "You're right about the attention-seeking, though. I do love attention, right guys?" He glanced around to the kids behind Kwan, who laughed and threw in their own doses of light-hearted insults. He did a fake bow and thanked everyone for their kind words, sending Kwan a wink at the end. 

Kwan seemed to relax a little now, though wariness still strung him up tightly and he studied Dong Soo.

"But let me just tell you one thing—" All of a sudden Dong Soo's eyes narrowed and any traces of humor vanished from his body. "—I don't like you either." Then he leaned in dangerously close, pulling his lips up to Kwan's ear and whispering warningly, " _Especially_ when you say bad things about Woon-ah." He could feel the other boy stiffening in response. "He's _not_ a killer, and I know you said that because you knew it would hurt him. I don't know what you have against Woon-ah personally, but don't you dare spread that kind of bullshit again. Got it?" 

When he received a nearly imperceptible nod in reply, Dong Soo patted Kwan's other cheek and muttered, "Good," before pulling away and smiling amicably.

He turned around to the others.

"Now...who's ready to get their butts kicked by Baek Dong Soo in a game of ball?"

* * *

When he returned back to the house, it was already dark and Woon was in the front yard laying some sort of giant stones on top of one another.

"Yah!" he greeted, munching on a big tart apple he sniped and leaping over the fence. 

Woon glanced up at him without halting in his activities and sighed, "When I told you to get back around supper time, I meant for you to come back _on time_ for supper."

Dong Soo shrugged, chewing contentedly on the fruit. "You threatened very scary things if I came back before suppertime. How was I to know exactly when the safety time was? It was better to play it safe." He took another bite out of his apple—a tad too large of one—and had to play around with it a bit using his hands before he was able to swallow the whole thing.

Woon shook his head slowly. "It's a good hour and a half past dinnertime. Your dinner's gone cold. It's still inside on the table though," he said, laying on another stone and scowling at the result.

Dong Soo quickly finished up his apple and licked his fingers happily. "—mmh...tha'sh gwood. Wha' ah 'oo doin' anywhays?" he managed through a mouthful of apple.

To his surprise, Woon didn't comment on his eating habits and instead answered truthfully, "An exercise. Sa Mo says that this exercise is supposed to train one's patience and perseverance. I'm supposed to gather large rocks and pile them as high as I can without letting them topple over." He frowned as one rock teetered dangerously near the side and held out a hand to support it.

"How high is it supposed to go?" Dong Soo asked clearly, finally swallowing the last of his apple.

"As high as I can pile them."

Dong Soo blinked. "Well then, there you go! Just say that this is the highest you can go and boom! You're done!"

This time Woon paused to send him a disapproving glare. "But it _isn't_ the highest I can go."

The other boy shrugged. "Who's going to know?"

"I will. And that's precisely the point of this exercise, Dong Soo-ya, perseverance and patience to find your own limits. It's actually an exercise that could greatly benefit you," he commented with a raise of his brows.

Dong Soo waved him off impatiently. "Nah, I don't need that crap. Baek Dong Soo doesn't have limits!" he cheerfully proclaimed, patting himself on the chest for emphasis.

Woon sighed, deciding not to point out the just how ironic Dong Soo's words and actions were.

"Alright! I'm off to get dinner!" And with that, Dong Soo slipped off the part of the wall he was sitting on and ambled away into the house, humming as he went. 

Two minutes later, he came back out with a bowl of rice topped with some banchan[2] and returned to the spot on the wall fence he'd been perched at earlier. He shoved food into his mouth as he went, pausing only to heave himself onto the top of the small wall.

"You—" Woon stared after Dong Soo, appalled at the number of improprieties the other boy was committing. 

"Don't say it. I eat how I want, alright? Plus, you looked lonely, laying your rocks like that, so I'm out here to keep you company," Dong Soo reasoned evenly, amazingly able to get in a few full sentences between chewing and swallowing. 

Woon rolled his eyes and decided that focusing on laying his rocks was the best way to retain his head and sanity. "So...how did the apology go?" he brought up.

The other boy cocked his head to the side. "Pretty good. They apologized, I accepted. We're back on friendly enough terms that they were willing to shelter me from your wrath until it was safe to make a voyage home." 

"Again, all I said was for you to make up with your friends. I wouldn't have done anything to you if you had done that," Woon pointed out peevishly, annoyed at having the same accusation thrown at him. 

"But you were scary, Woon-ah!" Dong Soo whined between mouthfuls. Woon looked away in disgust. "Anyways...Kwan is still a bastard, but we've come to an...understanding, so..." He nodded as he trailed off. 

"He apologized for making fun of your amnesia?" 

Dong Soo licked his lips as the last of his dinner traveled into his belly and wiped his mouth with his sleeve. "Yeah. Although he wasn't too happy about it and said a whole bunch of other crap, he was sorry for that bit."

Woon paused and straightened up to study his friend for a second or two. Then he bent down to pick up another rock. "Don't worry. Someday, you'll definitely find your memories." He didn't glance up to see the other's reaction because he didn't need to.

The older boy stared at Woon and sighed. "Yeah. Hopefully."

"You will," came the assuring response.

"Hmm..." Dong Soo replied noncommittally. "But that wasn't actually what I was thinking about."

"No?" Woon questioned in surprise.

"Nope." Dong Soo grinned. 

"Then what were you thinking about?" Woon blinked curiously, one rock held in hand idly.

"Secret," the other boy sung out, wagging a finger tauntingly and winking at Woon.

Woon scoffed. "Your secrets are never all that interesting."

"Admit it, you want to know! I bet you can't guess."

"Hmm...where you hide your stash of sweets?" Woon pretended to ponder deeply.

"No, but how'd you know I—"

"It's in the satchel I gave you stuffed under your pillow." 

"What?" Dong Soo screamed. "Hey! You're not supposed to—"

"I have to say it's not what I intended your satchel to be used as originally, but I suppose it works." 

Dong Soo pouted. "You're so mean, Woon-ah."

"Nah, you're just predictable," Woon returned honestly. 

Dong Soo chucked a pebble, which Woon effortlessly dodged.

* * *

"Are you certain this is the village?" a weary voice affirmed in a skeptical manner. The horse snorted softly at the slight pressure on its noseband and threw its head up in protest, but held steady its position atop a grassy hill overlooking the sleepy village below. The night was eerily quiet with only the distant chirping of a few lone crickets and the whisper of the wind to break the silence.

"Yes," another man replied from a kneeling position of salute on the ground. A small gesture to rise and continue had the subordinate standing up and reporting his findings. "If His Highness survived the fall and was washed downstream, this would be the most likely place he is at." 

The rider was silent and contemplative, quickly taste-testing the newfound knowledge with a growing sense of trepidation. A scowl added even more lines to his old features and his horse, sensing his master's unease, trotted a little in place and shook his head, jingling his reins. His master reached out to stroke the side of his neck, effectively calming him down. "What fate," he muttered heavily to himself. 

Once the horse had quieted, the man gave his subordinate a tired nod, signaling for him to continue.

"I've already had men perform a preliminary scan of the village and have found nothing out of the ordinary. It is a simple average village that has no name or trade it's known by. There are a few plots of farmland and your average townsfolk. My men observed a group of children around His Highness's age playing in the outer fields in the afternoon, so it is likely His Highness is among them should he be present."

When his superior issued him neither a reply nor a dismissal, he called out hesitantly, "Nauri[3]?"

"Tell me, Lee Bae Geok, why do you think His Highness has not sent word of his continued survival if he is alive?" He posed the question almost rhetorically, and Lee Bae Geok found himself hard-pressed to answer. To be honest, he had a theory or two hovering on the tip of his tongue, but he had never been sure it was his place to note such things, even as his commanding officer presented him with the invitation.

"I don't know, sir," he settled with responding, preparing himself for a look of disappointment or annoyance. To his pleasant surprise, he had suffered neither as the other man nodded his head in approval.

"Good. I was beginning to think I was the only one here," he chuckled jestingly, a light smile forming in the darkness that permeated their company. "We won't know until we find either His Highness or his body. I've contemplated the possibilities for this question and came up with several theories, none of which are comforting."

Lee Bae Geok nodded numbly.

"Tomorrow morn we ride into the village. Did you make the preparations I asked of you?" the man inquired with a slight edge to his voice.

"Yes, sir. All the supplies are in a cart in the camp." Lee Bae Geok confirmed right away, recalling the distinct spot he had told the men to leave the cart. He had a hunch as to what the preparation was for, but wasn't too certain on how they would be used.

"Ah, great," the other said easing up a tad. "Tomorrow, you will be Lee Bae Geok, the silk merchant who has just traveled in from Beijing with a batch of the latest trends, while I shall be Kim Jae Won, a humble medicine peddler from yonder who joined your merry group of traders."

Silk merchant?

Medicine peddler?

Ah.

"Yes, sir," he said, and left it at that.

 

 


	10. Chapter 10

It was a splendid day out and the epitome of spring's ethereal beauty, with the warm sun casting bright rays of joy on the rolling fields of grass that you could run your fingers through and come away feeling like you've touched the hair of a goddess. A family of hares scampered around from bush to bush while the birds fluttered from tree to tree. Out among the more open plains, a pair of hawks could be seen circling the heavens with their majestic wings tipped with ebony. A shrill cry pierced the vast plains every so often as the hawks danced a ritual to which only they knew and could hear.

The playful and feathery spring breeze ran across the fields down to the narrow ravines, echoing mystically back and forth between the age-old rocks and sharing whispers mischievously amongst the tree leaves before running off giggling and finally settling down obediently after a final tease of Woon's long locks. 

The winds parted squealing as Woon brought the sword down in a forward slash. They whined unhappily into his ear and Woon tried to relieve the feeling by rubbing a shoulder against his ear. He refocused on the target before him, closing his eyes as he visualized his imaginary opponent's stance and movements.

The enemy may have been bigger and stronger than him, but he was swifter and more agile, quick with his mind and sword and adept at reading his opponent's every stroke. He allowed his opponent the first move as they circled one another, gauging each other's levels. It was a lunge, and Woon was quick to parry and counter with an attack of his own. In his mind, the other was a foe of decent standing and easily dodged his counter. Both retreated back to their respective positions.

This time, Woon gathered the initiative and thrust forward, expecting the parry and attempt to disengage that followed and quickly retreating and bringing his sword down in a horizontal slash. He refused to engage in a battle of strength and wisely leapt away the moment their swords locked when the other blocked his offensive maneuver, but before his opponent could react, he lunged forward and advanced with a feint, distracting his opponent for long enough before he swung around the other way and settled the tip of his blade against his foe's neck.

The sound of clapping startled him out of his imaginary duel, and he whipped around to face the intruder, sword held out threateningly and poised for attack. It was an old man who stood outside the fence of their backyard, peering at Woon's display fascinatingly. 

"Beautiful," the stranger was saying while bringing two hands together, nodding and humming with deep approval and not at all threatened by the sharp blade pointing in his direction. "Beautiful swordplay, boy. You and your opponent are quite the swordsmen," he commented with a twitch of humor as he gave a nod of acknowledgement at the empty air Woon's opponent occupied. 

Woon's lips tightened into a line at the intrusion of privacy the stranger performed, but he was quick to wipe his face clean of negative emotions and bowed respectfully at the old man. "Thank you, ajusshi, for your praise," Woon responded politely with a light smile. 

Once again, the old man nodded and rumbled with approval. "Well-mannered too," he appraised as though he were eyeing a regal stallion open for trade. "Just..." He cocked his head to the side and pursed his lips while exhaling noisily through his nose. He stroked his graying beard slowly and thoughtfully, looking disappointed by something. "...why so cold towards this old man? Hmm?"

Woon froze, suddenly dry of wit and speechless of response. Who was this man? He wondered, and his silent question was greeted with a twinkling of eyes. To be able to read Woon...No matter, it was best to play it safe. Maintaining his smile and forcing himself to release the tension inside him, he scratched his head in the innocent guard-dropping manner he had often seen Dong Soo do. "I'm not certain what you might mean, ajusshi."

The old man burst out laughing and throaty chortles reverberated through the air. He nodded again while saying, "You're good, boy. You're good." And then he muttered something to himself that Woon couldn't quite hear, but sounded like, "He's raised you well..." Before Woon could ask if he'd heard correctly and what the old man had meant by the statement, the stranger cleared his throat and said, "Kim Jae Won, at your service. I am but a poor old medicine peddler and heard that your guardian might be interested in some of my services? Might he be in?" 

Woon's eyes narrowed, though he hid the action by smiling even wider. "If you're talking about Sa Mo, I'm afraid he's not. Although, I'm sure a butcher wouldn't have as much interest in herbs as much as my ajumma, our healer, does. She lives down the street if you'd like me to show you the way?" Woon offered courteously while observing the peddler with keen eyes.

Kim Jae Won's face fell, and he appeared genuinely disappointed by the fact, but remained completely ignorant of Woon's observation. "Your ajumma, huh...aigoo...I suppose I should have asked for the town healer first..."

But before Woon could open his mouth to say another word, someone walked out of the house. It was Sa Mo, who was whipping his head left and right as though in search of a fire. Upon catching sight of the stranger, tears sprung to his eyes and he let out a startling wail of "Hyung-nim!" and rushed out the gate to embrace the man in a tight hug.

The old man let out a calm chuckle and patted Sa Mo's back gently. "It's good to see you too, old friend, after all these years...I was just telling young Woon here that his skills in swordplay are magnificent, though they quite obviously have your signature all over." He pulled away and looked hard into Sa Mo's eyes, reprimanding the butcher, "How often did you train the boy in the basics?"

At this, Sa Mo seemed to blush spectacularly and his face pinched up in discomfort. "That...hyung-nim...it was just some basic swordplay, not the whole way of the warrior—" he tried to excuse himself.

"And I've always told you that the training of the mind, body and soul are essential to any form of swordplay, whether it be of the mind for a future scholar or the arm for a future warrior," the old man looked Sa Mo down with stern disapproval. 

Woon shifted uncomfortably on the side. Knowing that Sa Mo knew the stranger relaxed him a little, but..."How did you know my name?" Woon interrupted the two men uncharacteristically impatiently. "Who are you?" he asked, obviously not meaning the man's name.

Kim Jae Won studied Woon curiously. "I've known you since you were an infant and Shin Jung Kyung first held you in her arms," the elder smiled warmly. 

Woon's eyes widened at the mention of his mother's name. "Shin...Jung Kyung..." he tested the name out on his lips, never having heard his mother's full name before. A million questions bolted through his mind. "Then—"

"Ah, hyung-nim! You must be weary from your travels. Why don't you come in and sit and tell me just what brought you this way?" Sa Mo ushered Kim Jae Won through the gate into the house, abandoning Woon to his confusion outside. "Yah inuma, why don't you go chop up some more firewood?" he suggested before disappearing into the house.

Woon had no choice but to comply, squashing down the millions of questions that plagued his mind.

* * *

When Woon finally managed an impressive stack of firewood, he dropped the axe down on the tree stump and dabbed his forehead with his sleeve. His throat was parched and he decided to return to the house to relieve himself of some thirst. Upon reaching the front door however, the door opened on its own accord. Out stepped Sa Mo with a light scowl on his face that transformed into surprise when noticing Woon's presence.

He stared at Woon, suddenly suspicious. "Have you been eavesdropping?" 

Woon shook his head hastily. "No! I just came back to get some water—"

Sa Mo nodded, suddenly looking very ragged and exhausted. He pinched the bridge of his nose and muttered to Woon, "Go grab some water, and then go find Dong Soo...bring him back right away."

* * *

"You can't tag me back, Baek Dong Soo! I just tagged you! Yah!" an upset Jin Joo cried out unfairly as the mischievous boy stuck out a tongue at her and ran off.

"Whatever, you're it! You better chase after someone now or there'll be no one left to chase after!" Dong Soo shouted back across as Jin Joo pouted unhappily upon realizing everyone had run away from her.

"Aish...chincha! You guys! He should still be it!" She pointed an accusatory finger at Dong Soo and stomped her feet childishly. When it struck her that no one was even close enough to hear her anymore, she let out a wail and chased after Dong Soo.

"Yah! Why are you coming after me? No tag-backs!" he screamed as he ran as fast as his legs could carry him. 

"You were the one who tagged me after I said that, you bastard!" she screamed back and with vengeance fueling her trail, she caught up to Dong Soo and tackled the boy. "Ha!" she cried out triumphantly between heaving breaths. "Tag...got you...Dong Soo-ya..."

Dong Soo groaned from his prone position and muttered, "Aish...you..." He too was having a difficult time forming his words as his heart worked tirelessly to pump enough oxygen into his system. "You...crazy girl...geroff me, you're heavy!" He then wiggled sideways out from under Jin Joo and pushed her off, sitting up feeling completely disoriented. When the dizziness faded, he found his friends and the other kids all crowded around the two of them.

"Jin Joo-ya, you're alright?" Chung Hee asked his sister worriedly, kneeling down beside her and checking for injuries. 

The young girl waver her brother off and threw a glare in Dong Soo's direction. "It's all that idiot's fault," she huffed.

Dong Soo smacked his lips in indignation, jutting out a chin and an accusing finger shaking in her direction. "Yah...yah! I'm not the crazy girl-boy who goes around tackling people! Chincha..." He sneered at her again for good measure.

Jin Joo opened her mouth to object but was cut off by Chul Moo shouting, "Hey, is that Yeo Woon?" All heads turned around to look in the direction Chul Moo was pointing. Indeed, there was someone approaching swiftly on horseback, and closer inspection revealed it to be Woon.

Murmurs of 'what's he doing here?' and the like went around, and most eyes focused on Dong Soo to observe his reaction. None of them, however, brought up any ill words against Woon, lest Dong Soo snap again.

Unfortunately, Chul Moo didn't seem to have received the memo. "I think we should leave," he began by saying, a slight tremor filling his voice. Then he swallowed thickly, tremor replaced with hard distrust. "My eomeoni told me the other day...Yeo Woon's father killed his own wife. What can you expect out of a child whose parents did that sort of thing?"

The next thing Chul Moo knew was unforgiving pain.

* * *

He never found out why Sa Mo appeared so distraught, but the latter's expression read strongly of 'no argument', and so Woon immediately set out to find Dong Soo without another word. Kim Jae Won, who still bore the same countenance as earlier, suggested him to take Jang Mi's horse—it'd be quicker, he'd said. Not knowing how the medicine peddler knew about Jang Mi's horse, he ran off to his ajumma's place.

It had been a while since he'd ridden a horse, but the feeling still came naturally to him, and he was able to get on the horse and urge it to gallop out of the village rather swiftly. There were only a few places to check, Woon thought quickly. He thought Dong Soo had mentioned something about playing in the outer fields...he snapped the reigns and urged the horse to run faster.

His memory appeared to serve him correctly and indeed, there was a group of children huddled in the center of the grassy plain. He quickly pulled on the reigns to slow the horse to a trot promptly dismounted the moment the horse had slowed enough. What he saw upon approaching the group had him horrified.

Between the mob of children, Woon was able to make out Dong Soo throwing merciless punches at another boy on the ground. There were loud shrieks and yelling as the kids urged each other to stop the fight. Dae Ho was unsuccessfully attempting to pry Dong Soo off the other boy.

Woon slowly edged closer with reign in hand to the group of children, who had now given the two a wide berth. Dae Ho had been, for all the size and mass he was, pushed away and fell back a few feet, leaving Dong Soo free range to walk back to his target on the ground and land another punch, this time breaking the other boy's nose with a loud crack and drawing blood. 

The other boy was sobbing and cowering on the ground, hunched with his face hiding in his arms. Dong Soo didn't seem to care and rolled the boy back around, raising his fist for another strike—

"Stop!" Woon cried out desperately. 

This appeared effective in halting Dong Soo's fist. 

The furious boy breathed heavily as he held his fist high up, still prepared to unleash that last attack. 

Dong Soo couldn't remember what came over him. The moment Chul Moo, the bastard, said those things about Woon, again, he just snapped. A fiend of fury spontaneously manifested deep inside him and seized all his senses, pulling a curtain of red over his mind and heart and urging him to _hurt_ and hurt _badly_...

He glanced down at Chul Moo, who was hugging himself and bleeding from the nose, sobbing loudly and begging him to stop. Dong Soo sat there, still straddling the other boy and forcing his own breaths to come in deeply and slowly. With enough effort and willpower, he managed to release his fist and gradually brought his fist down to a non-threatening level. Giving the boy beneath him one more look of detest and repulsion, he pushed himself off and walked away, not one word of apology even crossing his mind let alone his tongue.

 _He deserved it_.

The cold satisfaction settled in Dong Soo's stomach, bringing cool relief to his burning senses.

Only upon walking up to Woon and meeting the younger boy's glare of disapproval mixed in with worry did he have the decency to look ashamed in his actions. "Woon-ah, I can explain—" He reverted to his sheepish manner and rubbed his nose nervously.

Woon shook his head. "No time for that. We need to get back," he stated simply and mounted the horse, pulling Dong Soo up to join him. "Hold on tight," he ordered, while grabbing the other boy's hand and placing it around his own waist. 

"Yah!" he cried out while giving the horse's stomach a strong kick, setting them off back towards the village. 

"What happened?" Dong Soo shouted against the wind. 

"I'm not sure either! Let's just go back first!" Woon returned, having to shout slightly less due to the wind carrying his voice.

* * *

When they arrived back at the village and returned Jang Mi's horse to the stall, Dong Soo spoke, "Woon-ah, about earlier—are you mad?" He bit his lip uncertainly and twisted his hands together.

"I'm not," came Woon's swift reply.

Dong Soo quirked an eyebrow skeptically. "Really? I don't believe you."

Here, Woon paused in his task of tying up the horse and sighed. "Well, I might be a little. That boy said something bad about me, didn't he?" Woon surmised while astutely scrutinizing Dong Soo's reaction. 

Dong Soo winced and nodded. Then fury came sweeping in again. "He deserved it, Woon-ah! The stuff he said, I just—"

"I know. And like I said many times before, I appreciate the effort. Really, Dong Soo-ya. I'm glad to have a friend who would defend me like that. But..." He trailed off glancing at Dong Soo strangely.

"But...?" Dong Soo repeated with a wince, dreading the ever-foreboding 'but'. 

Woon finished tying up the horse and knocked on Dong Soo's forehead with his index finger. "You're too rash, you idiot," he chastised gently, holding up Dong Soo's hands by the wrists and frowning at the bruised and bleeding knuckles. "And I..." He knocked on Dong Soo's forehead again for good measure. "...don't need protecting," he finished saying with a smile.

"And I told you it goes both ways," Dong Soo countered while grinning.

* * *

When they came home, they found yet another guest in their abode. He appeared to be a merchant of some sort, judging by his smart dress and rich fabric that put any of the villager's attire to woeful shame.

This man, upon catching sight of Dong Soo, stared at him with his jaw hanging open. "Ch-Chon—"

"Dong Soo-ya!" Sa Mo cried out with relief, corralling him over and making him take up a seat at their dinner table at which another older man sat. Dong Soo was absolutely lost as to what was happening, but followed Sa Mo's guidance and found himself seated at the stool, looking back and forth between Sa Mo, the two strangers and Woon, who looked just as confused as he did.

"Wh-What's going on?" Dong Soo piped up hesitantly and locked eyes with the older gentleman seated across from him. At first the other said nothing, simply sitting there and studying his features like a blind man reunited with sight and saw his son for the first time in his entire life. Suddenly, tears welled up in the old man's eyes, and he laughed with a choked sob. 

Dong Soo edged away slightly in discomfort and eyed Woon for help. The latter shrugged apologetically, just as helpless and puzzled. 

"Ah, I apologize for startling you...Dong Soo, was it?" The old man dabbed himself of tears and smiled amiably, weaving his fingers together before setting them down on the table. 

The boy in question relaxed a bit upon some semblance of normalcy and nodded. "Yeah, that's right. Baek Dong Soo is the name," he stated proudly, though not with the usual amount of zealousness that accompanied such introductions.

"Baek—?" The old man glanced at Sa Mo in surprise and smiled sadly when the other looked away. "I see..." he breathed.

"Sa Mo?" Dong Soo looked to the butcher for some guidance, and the other responded by closing his eyes and letting out a deep breath.

"He's an old old friend of mine, Dong Soo-ya. And he..." Whatever it was Sa Mo was about to say seemed to die in his throat. But after a moment or so, the butcher looked at Dong Soo straight in the eye and said quietly, "He knows about your past." Then, without awaiting Dong Soo's response, he walked away. On the way out the door, he placed a gentled hand on Woon's shoulder and turned him towards the door, ushering the boy to leave as well.

"Woon-ah!" Dong Soo shouted, scrambling up from his chair slightly when he realized the two people he was familiar with were about to leave him with two complete strangers. He glanced about wildly, like a trapped animal. 

"Dong Soo-ya," Woon called out from the doorway, looking like he desperately wanted to stay. "You can trust him," he reassured his friend and sent the medicine peddler a hard glare, silently warning him not to hurt or push Dong Soo. _'If you do something that makes Dong Soo even the slightest uncomfortable...'_

 _'Don't worry. I'd rather cut off my own arm than bring any unhappiness to this child,'_ Kim Jae Won seemed to respond kindly and truthfully to Woon, giving the young boy a nod of respect and promise.

Woon cast one last glance at Dong Soo and smiled before Sa Mo nudged him out the door and out of sight.

* * *

"Sa Mo..."

The butcher grunted in reply. 

"You think Dong Soo will be alright?" Woon asked hesitantly, twirling a stick around between his fingers. His eyes were lost and mesmerized by the dancing flames of the campfire before him, lost in the way the wisps of fire lashed about harshly yet appeared to curl so gently at the same time. There was something about fires that usually drew him in but always left him with a feeling of discomfort. Right now, however, he only basked in the feeling of being drawn in by the fire, endlessly and continuously.

"That brat...is a strong kid. He may be a no-good most of the time, but the kid has a good head on his shoulders and a good heart. He's a strong one, he is...stronger than you," Sa Mo commented with absolute truth, poking the fire with an idle twig.

"I know," Woon said softly. "He's a lot stronger than me...He..." _'believes in making his own fate,'_ Woon finished the thought in his head _._ He lifted his head and looked across the fire at his guardian. "Who is he?" he asked quietly.

At first, Woon believed Sa Mo had refused to answer, but seeing the butcher's troubled face, he began to believe that Sa Mo wasn't answering because he didn't know _how_ to answer, which made Woon dread the truth even more.

"He's nobility, isn't he?" It wasn't a question as much as a statement. And Woon had to stop himself from glancing away. The stiffening of shoulders cast away any doubt Woon might have had about the issue before. To make things easier on Sa Mo, who appeared decidedly uncomfortable with breaking the news to Woon, he went on to say, "He told me about the things he remembered. They weren't things that any chonmin would know." 

Sa Mo remained silent and did not meet Woon's eyes. The butcher knew how keen the young boy was and didn't want...

"Is there something else?" Woon asked suspiciously, rising to his feet as possibilities and probabilities whizzed about him and he sorted through various scenarios and hypothesis. "There's something else too, isn't there?" he repeated accusatorily when Sa Mo exhaled loudly through his nostrils and looked away even more.

"What is it?" Woon demanded harshly, causing Sa Mo to shift uncomfortably and rub his face into his hand. "Did he run away from home? Does he have some sort of terminal illness? Did he..." Did he have anything from his previous life that upset him? Hurt him? Or worse yet...did he have _nothing_ from his previous life that upset him? It was a misfortunate accident that caused brought him to Woon. Was his life actually much better before? And now that the right people have found him again...Woon wanted to hit himself for thinking so selfishly. How could he wish for Dong Soo to have had a bad previous life? A sharp pain shot through his heart.

Baek Dong Soo...

"What's...what's his real name?" he brought up resignedly. 

"...Lee Hwon," Sa Mo answered gruffly.

Woon nodded slowly, smiling thoughtfully. "Lee Hwon...sounds like a regal name. Really doesn't suit him," he laughed bitterly, conjuring up an image of Dong Soo's messy curls bouncing up and down when the boy ran around like a wild caveman. Dirt had always seemed to be Dong Soo's best friend and clung to him regardless of time of day and season.

Ward and guardian fell back into stony silence once more, with only the crackling of the embers and the chirping of crickets the musicians for this lonely night. 

So many questions...so many questions raced around in his mind and pulled at his thoughts. But what could he ask? What did he want to know? What was he _willing_ to know? To learn? Woon bit a lip. Some stones were better left unturned, according to his own philosophy. But he did want to know. He wanted to know so badly _everything_ about his best friend...his only friend. In the end, it was cowardice, Woon realized with a pang. He drew his knees up to his chest. He was scared to learn the truth. Always. Dong Soo was right. It bothered him. It always bothered him. He was a big fat hypocrite. He claimed that not knowing—his past, his Fate—not knowing didn't bother him. That he didn't need to know. But he did so desperately and it tormented him constantly.

He's just too scared to confront it. 

And now it's coming back to haunt him.

How could he ever have believed that Dong Soo would just willingly give up his past like that? 

"Dong Soo-ya," Sa Mo's surprised voice called out. 

Woon glanced over his shoulder and slowly turned to face the boy standing in the doorway. His friend seemed to be drained of emotions, facials lacking their usual enthusiasm and vigor. He began walking unsteadily towards Woon, though his eyes remained unfocused on the ground before him. Behind him, the old medicine peddler watched from the doorway. He made eye contact with Sa Mo and must have signaled something, because before Woon realized, Sa Mo had gotten up and left to go back inside, leaving the two boys to sort out their feelings. The other stranger appeared momentarily, looking as if he wanted to protest, but the older man encouraged him back inside, shutting the door close behind them.

"Dong Soo-ya?" Woon walked tentatively towards the other boy and held out two arms to help steady him. 

Dong Soo paid no heed to the proffered arms and instead listlessly dropped his head onto Woon's shoulder, mumbling something Woon couldn't quite hear. He hesitantly wrapped his friend in a supportive embrace and asked him gently what he had said.

Dong Soo muttered the words again.

Woon froze.

This time, he had heard clearly the words, _"I am the Crown Prince...I am the Crown Prince of this nation."_

 


	11. Chapter 11

_"I am the Crown Prince...I am the Crown Prince of this nation..."_

Woon didn't answer. He couldn't answer. His hands remained unmoving from their place around Dong Soo's back, and his mind blanked out on him while the words echoed strangely in Woon's ears—the acoustics were perfect and resounded unerringly in his head, but the meaning and weight of the words remained obstinately out of grasp. It was as though his mind was a derailed wagon, and though the wheels continued spinning and spinning, it was an inconclusive action that brought the cart no closer to its destination.

Dong Soo's forehead was still pressed heavily against Woon's shoulder, and Woon suddenly felt the urge to squeeze his friend even closer. He was taller than the other boy, and it wasn't long before he felt the other boy straighten up and return the desperate embrace, pressing his own body close to Woon's and holding onto the other boy as if he was the only lifeline Dong Soo had.

_"I am the Crown Prince of this nation..."_

Crown Prince...

The meaning of the title finally settled harshly in Woon's head. It settled harshly, the wretched knowledge seeping out of his conscious and wrapping around his chest like vines, constricting it and suffocating him and—and then everything spiraled into muteness like being absorbed by silence, or muffled at least—his feelings, his thoughts, their surroundings...so Dong Soo was the Crown Prince; so what? Nothing mattered and nothing pervaded his mind except the persistent knowledge that his best friend needed him right now. 

"It's ok," Woon whispered reassuringly while rubbing comforting circles on Dong Soo's back. The other was still in shock, Woon could tell. Hell, he himself was still in shock. But it wouldn't do for him to become emotionally comatose as well right now, not when Dong Soo needed him and—

—out of nowhere, he was shoved to the ground and landed on his bum with an 'oomph'. The first thing his disoriented senses picked up was the sound of running footsteps leading away from him. He spun around and stumbled to his feet, calling out desperately, "Dong Soo-ya!" 

He winced as a sharp pain throbbed in his head and he clutched at his temple, faltering and grasping at the air for balance. Peering into the void-like darkness, Woon let out a noise of despair—how was he going to chase after the other in the moonless night? He glanced up at the sky and pressed his lips into a thin line, cursing at the swoops of black clouds covered up the little shine that the moon presented. He looked at the little campfire a few steps behind him. The light of the fire only traveled so far and did little to pierce the darkness.

If Dong Soo was the Crowned Prince...

Woon bit his lips and made a decision.

* * *

_Breathe, his mind told him. Breathe and run._

It was familiar to him—this desperate run. 

He just felt the primal urge to flee overthrowing all other thoughts, tossing them aside savagely. 

_Don't look back. Don't look down. Keep moving._

It wouldn't have mattered if he did. The black night ensconced him, for better or for worse, with her constant presence, granting him refuge but denying him comfort. She was a sly one, she was, playing with his head and sparing scattered tendrils of moonlight onto the dark shapes to plague his mind with tricks. 

Some small part of his mind kept warning him to slow down, slow down before he tripped and fell, but he didn't. He was much more sure-footed and agile than he originally believed. Yes, he had always commented on that—who was it? 

His feet finally failed him, however, when he stumbled over something invisible in the darkness and slid onto the ground. A flash of a cliff—river?—blipped in his mind, and he shook it off with a hiss. Judging by the gravelly texture of the dirt beneath him broken by the occasional tufts of grass, Dong Soo deduced that he was in the playing field, where enough children's feet had managed to deprive the area any chances of beautiful grass but not enough traffic that the idle weeds couldn't survive.

Drawing his knees up to his chest, he began rocking himself back and forth, nerves frayed and unsettled, trembles taking over his whole body. He forced a couple of deep breaths, and the chilly night air burned refreshingly in his lungs. 

_"Do you remember me, Dong Soo?"_

_He shook his head. He didn't remember the kind old man that sat across him at their table. He didn't. But there was familiarity in the smile—that smile brought him comfort and nostalgia. But he didn't know! Why?_

_"I am your tutor, Dong Soo-ya. I have been your tutor for many many years—since you were a wee little boy," Kim Jae Wong—no, Gwang Taek, as the man reintroduced himself moments later, said._

_"Why don't you tell me about yourself, Dong Soo-ya?"_

And he did. Just like that, a floodgate had opened, and the fact that this man knew about his past was quickly forgotten.

_He talked and talked, rambling off stories of adventures of him and Woon, stories of Sa Mo's trysts with Jang Mi—which brought a good chuckle or two out of Gwan Taek, stories about Dae Ho and Chung Hee and all the other kids, stories about the stuff he learned and about the things he wanted to learn._

At one point, he finally began to realize just how long he had been yapping away—he had talked his way through dinnertime—and grew self-conscious, at last clamping up and remembering his manners. Gwang Taek only gave a hearty laugh and told him it was alright. He enjoyed listening to Dong Soo's stories.

_But the discomfort grew, and the knowledge that his tutor came searching for him, that someone from his past who knew all about him was sitting right in front of him, weighed heavily on his mind._

And in that moment, he finally understood Woon's fear.

_It was easy to say he wanted to know his past, know who he was and know the truth, when the truth was so far out of reach that whatever he wanted couldn't have been realized anyways._

_But now that truth came knocking on his front door, Dong Soo shrank back._

_What did he want to ask? Who he was? Who his parents were? If he really was from the palace? What was his life like? What was he like? Who were his friends? Was he happy? Why did this happen? What happened? Will he recover? Did his tutor come to take him back?_

_His heart lurched._

_Would he have to say goodbye to Woon?_

_And suddenly, Dong Soo didn't want to know anything. Not if it meant knowing he would have to..._

But his tutor was patient, and his tutor was gentle. The old man possessed a benevolence that should have made him a saint, and his calming smile coupled with his twinkling eyes gradually coaxed Dong Soo into relaxation. 

_He was still scared and his heart thumped in a quickened but subdued manner, but he had promised—to himself and Woon—that he wanted to know. So, he steeled his nerves and stared Gwang Taek straight in the eye, demanding quietly—_

_"Tell me. Tell me everything."_

_Gwang Taek had looked at him curiously, studying his protégé with a discerning eye as if testing him for something. "What do you know?" his tutor had asked in return, telling him that it would be best to build his story off of what Dong Soo already knew, rather than pouring everything onto him at once._

And so Dong Soo told him. 

_He told the old man about what he and Woon had discussed, about how the younger boy had hypothesized Dong Soo was of nobility. At this, Gwang Taek let out a merry chuckle, commenting on what a smart child Woon was indeed. Dong Soo grinned proudly at the complement for his friend then froze._

_"Wait...so I really_ am _yangban?"_ _he asked in disbelief, receiving a nod in reply._

_"What's my real name?"_ _he asked right after, suddenly realizing that his real name was, in all probability, not 'Baek Dong Soo'._

Lee Hwon, the elder had stated patiently without giving much away.

 _He tested the name in his own mouth and wrinkled his nose. "It sounds so...posh," he remembered commenting. This instigated another round of laughter from the old man, who mentioned that indeed even before, Dong Soo didn't like his name much_.

Then he asked about his family. 

_"I have a hyung, don't I?" he inquired eagerly, his worries temporarily swept away by the flood of curious excitement. When Gwang Taek nodded approvingly with an enlightening raise of his brows, Dong Soo let out a small 'whoop!' and grinned spectacularly. Immediately succeeding his previous question was a question on what his hyung was like._

_Kind, was how his tutor had described him. Kind and loving, ingenious and open-minded, a real scholar worth his salt. Dong Soo nodded dreamily, overwhelmed with adulation by the description of a hyung he could only fuzzily recall. But the man's characterization of his hyung was a positive match to the feelings he had in his heart. When Dong Soo asked what he was doing now, Gwang Taek replied by saying that his hyung had been searching for him tirelessly since his disappearance._

_And his parents? What were they like?_

He let out a growl of frustration. 

He should have known. He should have known then, when his master's smile tightened a fraction, that there was something about his heritage that would have stolen his happiness. 

_His mother was elegant in her beauty and had the fingers of a goddess when it came to the gayageum, and the most alluring melodies filled the gardens when the tips of her fingers stroked the strings._

_But his abeonim had been the one closer to Dong Soo._

_His father had been the most hard-working, loving and loyal subject of this country Gwang Taek had ever known and ever would know. His father did his best to serve the people, to ensure the happiness of all, from the beggars in the streets to the highest court of Joseon._

_Dong Soo took in all of this greedily, eyes sparkling with pride for the person his father had chosen to be._

_Where were they now?_

Again, Gwang Taek's smile had faltered slightly in that moment and Dong Soo should have known.

_Home, came the answer._

_And then the elder looked like he wanted to speak more, but Dong Soo's jubilation cut him off when the boy continued asking questions like, where was their house? How big was it? Did they have a big courtyard? Was it near the palace? Dong Soo mentioned quickly about how he had flashes of memories of being inside the palace. Did he really get to visit? Why?_

_He only halted his endless siege of questions when he noticed the solemn expression cast over his master's face._

_"Listen, Dong Soo-ya..." he began, resignation written between the lines in his forehead and reluctance tightening his features._

It was only then that the idea that something was wrong dawned on Dong Soo.

_"...Maybe you'll take this positively and maybe you'll take this badly, but there's something you should know about yourself. You're not quite yangban, Dong Soo-ya. You're royalty." Gwang Taek drew in a sharp breath but then let his mouth fall shut, withholding more words for the sake of observing Dong Soo's reaction._

_"...What?" Dong Soo asked faintly, the term foreign and laughable in his mind._

_"You are a prince of this country, and moreover, you are her Crown Prince."_

And that brought him to now.

Vaguely, he recalled stumbling out of the chair and murmuring some excuse to leave, letting his legs carry him to the door. He ignored the surprised yell of 'Chon-ha!' that the second stranger, who must have received an order to remain silent in the corner, let out. 

There was some fuzzy recollection of Sa Mo's startled expression, then Woon turning around to look at him. He remembered letting his weight lead him to Woon, whose silhouette against the fire was the only thing he could make out, plus a worried tone of voice.

His back tingled at the memory of the other boy's soothing embrace, but the confusion and shock continued to flood his systems, and even Woon's rare physical comforting did little to ease him.

He thought he told Woon who he was, but he wasn't sure, because his mind shut down on him soon after, leaving him one final message to run.

The sound of orders being shouted faraway drew him out of his reverie, and his head snapped up at the noises. 

"Search over there!" someone barked out sharply, his command inflating the pace of Dong Soo's heart. He didn't want to be found yet. He couldn't be found yet. He wasn't ready to be found yet. He slowly got to his feet, staring at the blips of light coming from the torches being carried by a number of people. He backed away carefully, and sprung away when the lights began moving towards him.

Apparently, his movement resulted in the crunching sound of feet on gravel and attracted the attention of the mob. Another order was issued speedily and Dong Soo found himself the target of a hot pursuit. 

Frantically, he sprinted as fast as he could. He was running so fast and panic seized him so dangerously that just barely managed to make out the dim shape of the mouth of the well before his leg caught on a water bucket and sent him tumbling headfirst into the well. 

Fortunately for him, his head managed to avoid the unpleasant encounter of any part of the wall of the well, and he landed rather securely back-first into the water. The initial impact with the water only incapacitated him for a couple of seconds before he regained enough of his bearings to claw his way up to the surface, spluttering and gasping for breath.

Water dripped down his face, and he pushed one hand up his face and over his hair to brush the water out of the way. He managed to gain a foothold in an uneven part of the well wall and his hands grasped at air until they caught onto the rope fastened to the bucket used to draw water. He let out a small grin, tugging at the taut rope experimentally. Thank goodness the bucket had fallen into the well with him; he had a way out. 

With much effort, he lifted one leg out of the water—the one that didn't have a foothold—and placed it against the wall. Biting his lips with a trace of dread outlining his features, he pushed up with the leg in the foothold and heaved himself and grabbed a higher part of the rope with much effort. He then released his foothold in an attempt to walk up the wall and—

—splash!

He emerged from the water spluttering and coughing again, wiping his face of droplets. It wasn't going to work. The wall was covered in moss, Dong Soo realized as he placed one hand against it and felt around the cold masonry. His head slumped forward in light of the new disappointment—so much for luck.

And very suddenly, the urge to cry welled up unattractively inside him, and an unprecedented feeling of unfairness closed in on him, leaving him wracked with sobs that reverberated painfully against the circle of wall holding him prisoner.

His trembling fingers found the safety of the slick rope in the darkness, and he clung to it desperately, squeezing it tightly with both hands as he drew in shuddery breaths. He eventually stopped crying, desperation and fear now replaced by an eerie calm that's been imbued with bitterness.

The brief grotesque thought of dying down here crossed his mind for a mere second, and disturbingly enough, he decided it wouldn't have been a bad alternative. But then his mind asked, to what? An alternative to what? Since when had dying been an alternative to anything? Part of him suddenly became repulsed by the thoughts that had surfaced, and he huffed out his frustration, thumping his forehead resignedly against the knuckles of his hand.

What in the world was happening?

Just six hours ago, he had still been out in the fields where his foremost concerns had been tagging someone and running away before they had a chance to tag him back. And now?

A _prince_? _Him_?

Woon's soft comforting "Dong Soo-ya" shot through his mind. He winced

If he was the...Crown Prince...shouldn't he have unnaturally good posture, impeccable manners and a silver tongue of saccharine and poison? Wouldn't he have been wearing...princely attire? Gods, the thought that he was—it never even crossed his mind...

...How could he forget something like that?

Again, Woon's voice sounded in his mind, but this time, it rang a little too loud and a little too real.

"Baek Dong Soo!" 

There were some other shouting tossed around way above him as he stared up to observe. He could make out the occasional shapes and forms silhouetted against the shy moon, though be they human or the branches of trees, he couldn't tell right away. 

Then, "Dong Soo-ya?," one of the outlines called out hesitantly.

Dong Soo swallowed thickly and shifted in the water, the noise of small splashing amplified by the walls. "Woon-ah?" he sent back, equally hesitant, knowing that the other boy would have no visibility of him whatsoever.

It might have been his mind playing tricks on him, but he swore he was able to make out Woon's shoulders sagging in relief, even in this dimness and distance. His friend must have said something to some people behind him, because all of a sudden, the mouth of the well was flooded with red and orange that was carried by the torches of the search party. 

Light flickered and glanced off of the little ring high above him, and he called out again, "Woon-ah?" 

"I'm here," Woon returned reassuringly. "The rope fell down with you, right? Dong Soo-ya?" Receiving a noise of affirmation, he proceeded to instruct the boy, "Grab onto the rope and...can you sit on the bucket?" After a bit of readjusting and a few failed attempts, Dong Soo echoed back a 'done', and Woon nodded to one of the searchers, who signaled the other men to pull.

The moment his foot took to the mouth of the well and he got off of the ridiculously uncomfortable bucket, he was pulled off-balance—nearly collapsing onto the ground—into a suffocating and extremely uncharacteristic hug by Woon.

"W-Woon-ah...I'm...wet. You're getting wet because I'm wet and you should—"

"Shut up," came the soft growl as younger boy held onto him, digging his chin into Dong Soo's shoulder blades. Dong Soo, who was still in shock with a mind that swirled with an overload of not-yet-processed information, simply went with what felt natural and slowly let his arms move on their own accord to embrace his friend. He vaguely noted the way their bodies were pressed so intimately together and the fact that they had an audience. And slowly, the swarm of thoughts finally began to settle, seeping into the soil like the way Woon's warmth was seeping into him. 

And then he noticed it—Woon was shaking.

"Woon-ah—" Dong Soo started with a hint of alarm, but was cut off when Woon squeezed him further.

"Don't...I thought you were gone...I...I thought you were going to leave me. Well, you are going to leave me—" Woon broke off laughing brokenly between rambling and shaking. "You're my friend, my only friend, my _best_ friend and..." He breathed in sharply. "You're right. I was—I am, a coward."

Dong Soo wanted to interject and deny that no, Woon was not a coward—Dong Soo had never said anything like that?—and was in fact one of the bravest and most sharp-witted people he's ever met. But from the way his friend held onto him, the older boy knew not to interrupt and simply let the other speak his words. He allowed Silence to play his messenger in cueing the other boy to continue.

"I...I hate not knowing. Not knowing who I was, what my destiny was...and now who you were and if you'll leave us forever. And I'm scared to find out, to be honest," Woon whispered this last bit vulnerably, the quiet confession reserved only for Dong Soo's ears. "I am a hypocrite. I want to know, but I don't want to know." He let out a shaky laugh, and Dong Soo could tell, even without seeing the other, that Woon was on the verge of tears. "You were right about that too, you know? Regardless of whether or not I want to know, the fact is that I _need_ to know." Here, he pulled away from Dong Soo at last, hands still clenching Dong Soo's shoulders solidly. "Thank you, Dong Soo-ya. For teaching me that," he expressed his gratitude with a warm half-smile.

Dong Soo thinned his lips, unsure of how to respond.

"And so I think it's only fair that I remind you of your own lesson, Baek Dong Soo." Woon shot him an encouraging smile. "You've wanted to know who you were for so long. It's a part of you. And you need it. So don't run away from it, alright?"

Dong Soo nodded numbly, eyes downcast and finding it difficult to meet Woon's. 

"Find out who the Crown Prince, Lee Hwon, is. And don't worry about Baek Dong Soo. He'll always be right here—" Woon swore faithfully and reassuringly with a gentle tap of his own heart. "—with me. And when the day comes where Lee Hwon is ready for an idiot called Dong Soo, our paths will cross again. How's that for a promise?"

Though Woon might have succeeded in holding his unshed tears at bay, Dong Soo shared not the same talent. His bottom lip trembled, signaling the tell-tale sign of an all out wail. Unsurprisingly, the next thing Dong Soo knew, he was back in Woon's tight embrace, his head buried deep against Woon's chest and loud ugly sobs thankfully smothered and muted by his friend's tunic. He sniffed and part of him wanted to pull back, embarrassed by the copious amounts of tears and snot and slob he was producing into the other boy's clothes, but the comforting hand that soothed his water-clad back and the nimble fingers that brushed through his hair gently just made him lose it all.

And there they stood, the slender boy holding onto his sobbing mess of a friend with a steady posture and gentle smile, and the Crown Prince of Joseon, who at the moment was simply a young boy of fifteen, crying out all his feelings into his friend's chest, muttering the other's name over and over and over again. 

 


	12. Chapter 12

Lee Bae Geok was having a conniption, and it really set his nerves on edge to see that his superior, Gwang Taek, was not stressed in the same manner he was. In fact, the other appeared hardly frazzled in the slightest.

"I've sent out my men to search, Nauri. The moment they find His Highness, one of them will report back to me and—are you certain we shouldn't be searching for the Crown Prince ourselves, sir?" He paused his wild pacing and stood and turned to face the older gentleman, who simply took another sip of his tea in the perfect example of serene calmness.

"The best person for the task is already on it. Why don't you have a seat and let them do their job?" The old man made a sound of approval at the fragrance of the tea, taking a moment to tip the cup towards him and inspecting it closely. The younger commander had no idea what could be so enticing about a tea found in a butcher's home in a village with no name, but that wasn't what Lee Bae Geok was concerned with.

"Best person—you mean that other boy?" The younger Head-of-Guard frowned, recalling the lanky and dirty boy with long messy hair and an unnervingly frosty glare. 

_'Your men may be the ones to search for him, but I'll be the one to talk to him first, is that clear?_ ' the young boy had demanded, and Lee Bae Geok nearly popped a vessel at the indignation that swept over him at being spoken to like that. As a man who respected rank and authority and acknowledged it dutifully where it was due, he nearly lashed out at the impudent child. He was stopped by the ice-cold glare that pierced the distance between them. Though loathe he was to admit it, those eyes sent a shudder crawling down his spine, and he grudgingly held a modicum of respect for the natural atmosphere of command the child exuded in that moment. 

"Yeo Woon. Indeed, that boy is quite something, hmm? Takes after his father, that one does," the old scholar spoke thoughtfully, stroking his beard idly while lost in some faraway memory.

"You knew the boy's father, Nauri?" Lee Bae Geok inquired, astounded. He had gathered that the butcher—Sa Mo, was it?—was a dear old friend of his lord's, but had no idea that the latter had connections with the orphan as well.

"Hm? Yes, of course. Actually—you knew him too." Gwang Taek now turned to stare at him curiously.

"Me, Nauri?" The younger man blinked, bending slightly forward towards the older man and pointing to himself. Upon receiving a smile and nod, he straightened up and frowned. Yeo Woon...Yeo...it wasn't too common of a last name...He inhaled deeply and slid his tongue over his teeth. He himself didn't know of any Yeo's among his colleagues that could have fathered a child fifteen years ago...Maybe it was someone he knew through his father? His own father was the Minister of Defense—it was how he got this position—and as the youngest son of four, he didn't have the privilege of interacting with his father's associates as often as his brothers did.

Yeo...

And suddenly it clicked.

He whirled around, searching for his superior's eyes to see if they could confirm his revelations. "Yeo—it can't be. Yeo Cho Sang... _Yeo-daegum?_ The former—"

Gwang Taek held up a hand and cut him off with a curt nod. 

Lee Bae Geok was floored, the newfound knowledge setting off a chain reaction of questions in his mind. "Of all the places His Highness...what Fate," he unknowingly echoed the other man's words from the night prior. And then a thought came to him. "Nauri, will we be bringing the boy back as we—"

"No," came the swift response.

Whatever Lee Bae Geok wanted to say next was snatched from his mouth. 

"The Fates brought the Crown Prince to Yeo Woon, not the other way around. They were meant to meet, but I believe that if the Fates meant for Yeo Woon to return to the capital, the two of them would not have met _here_. Whatever it is that awaits that boy, returning to the capital is not one of them. Not yet, at least." 

"Does—"

Both men's heads whipped around as the door was thrown back violently. It was one of the guards under Lee Bae Geok's command, who hurried over to the two men and gave a quick salute. "Sir, we found the Crown Prince. And like you ordered, we have allowed the boy approach His Highness first and gave them space to talk."

"And where are your men now?" The Head-of-Guards inquired, rising to his feet.

"I left them to stand watch but keep their distance. They're near the well."

Lee Bae Geok nodded, already heading towards the door. "Let's go."

* * *

When their entourage, led hastily by the messenger and trailed calmly by Gwang Taek, arrived at the scene—it was hard to miss due to the bright conglomeration of flickering flames that contrasted the thick darkness, there was a wide crowd of guardsmen providing ample space for two figures in the center.

"Chon-ha?" Lee Bae Geok called out hesitantly as he edged closer to the pair, holding out a torch and flanked by another guard. 

One of the figures flinched and reluctantly pulled away from the other. Lee Bae Geok allowed himself a moment to observe the two. Although it was the same face and same person, the ragged clothing, messy hair and undignified posture made the youth foreign to the guardsman. He was accustomed to seeing the young prince donned in regal shades of maroon with intricate patterns woven on the finest silk from China. Never had he seen His Highness's hair let down, let alone strewn chaotically about his head. 

He then let his eyes trail over to the prince's companion. Yeo Woon. Yeo Cho Sang's only child. Lee Bae Geok nearly gasped at the startling resemblance between this child and the child's mother—it was never a light nor false rumor that the Lady of the Yeo household was a beauty comparable to the heavenly maidens themselves. Rumor also had it the King had once set his eyes on her, though that was long before she was married to the King's close friend and trusted advisor. Their marriage had been a truly joyous one that received the King's full blessings.

But that's not to say that the boy he studied before him was feminine. No—there was a fine balance between elegance and strength, and the boy treaded the line beautifully. The dirt and grime smudged across the child's face did little to mar the regal contour of his features. The outline of his face resembled an almond—something highly sought after in girls—but there was still an edge of hardness and danger present in the way he set his jaws. The boy's eyes were wide and at first glance deceptively innocent, but Lee Bae Geok would be hard-pressed to say he had never seen more cutting and cold of a gaze, even among his group of well-trained and experienced guards.

Lee Bae Geok really wondered how he had not made such poetic observations beforehand, when they were all in the house.

 _'Because you would never have thought to look_ ,'his mind told him.

Then he understood. Glancing up quickly at Gwang Taek, he only received a mirthful smile in return.

* * *

Things died down quickly after the ordeal. All the ruckus and lights had managed to ruse a few of the villagers, but as previously agreed on, the head of the guards and the old medicine peddler fed the curious and sleepy civilians some story about a sneaky thief in the night. They were quick to add on that the thief was, no doubt, after the precious cargo of the merchants and certainly not after some idle old pots or buckets. A search party had been formed to root out the culprit and was the cause for all the disruption.

Buying into the lie without a second thought, the villagers returned to the comfort of their beds, eager to settle the business in the morning.

When morning did come, Dong Soo found himself preparing his goodbyes. He was given a full day to do so, according to his tutor, and when the 'merchant caravan' left the following morning, Dong Soo would be with them.

Although there were tears and tantrums—courtesy of Jin Joo—when Dong Soo morosely delivered the bad news, he was met with more encouraging smiles and friendly hugs than anything else. He felt bad lying to his friends—he told them that one of the members of the caravan had been kind enough to pass on a message to him, which basically entailed Dong Soo's nonexistent aunt on the other side, asking Sa Mo to return custody of Dong Soo to her. Apparently she was the wife of some chungin in the city and had no idea of her sister-in-law's passing until very recently. And, being of higher status and better position to provide for Dong Soo, she asked to gain guardianship of him.

Yes, he agreed that it was unfair of his 'aunt' to break him away from his friends like that. And yes, he would probably have to do 'proper' things like studying Confucius—this drew a few laughs.

All in all, it was a satisfying and comforting goodbye, one that left no loose ends. He gave Jin Joo a friendly peck on the cheek when she wouldn't stop crying and clinging to him not to go. The action startled the group and probably sent the girl into shock, but Dong Soo simply grinned his carefree grin and told her to find a boy that wasn't as troublesome as him, and so maybe Chung Hee would be able to live longer without suffering multiple heart attacks. She would get over him, he promised, even as the girl was shaking her head vehemently.

He thanked Dae Ho for all the older boy had done. The other was a good leader and would look after the lot of them well.

To Chul Moo, he clapped on the back and told not to be such a gossip-rat anymore. He apologized for attacking the other, not wanting to leave on bad terms, but fervently warned the other to stop participating in the hearsay of others. That sort of talk would leave him nowhere good. The boy nodded eagerly, a bit terrified. 

With Kwan, he had little to no words. A glare sufficed as threat. There was no love to salvage here, Dong Soo had decided, and made sure the other knew of that.

From Chung Hee...from Chung Hee, he extracted a promise. First, he apologized for not being able to see Sanai grow up into a dog. Then, he quietly asked of Chung Hee to look after Woon. The other boy drew in a breath, uncertainty written all over his features, but Dong Soo quickly told him that he wasn't asking his friend to befriend Woon. He knew that Chung Hee had little to no qualms doing so, had he actually asked that of him, but Chung Hee's worries stemmed from the actions of everyone around him. He had a sister to think about.

Nevertheless, he promised Dong Soo with a smile, honored that he had been trusted enough to be tasked with a favor. He would make sure Woon wasn't bothered in any negative manner.

With that, Dong Soo's heart relaxed, and he left, now trying to figure out the best way to say goodbye to his best friend.

* * *

They dueled.

Watching them were Gwang Taek, Sa Mo, Lee Bae Geok and a couple of other guardsmen. Sa Mo tossed in his inputs from time to time, giving each boy his fair share of pointers and chastisements. Gwang Taek would stand next to Sa Mo, stroking his beard thoughtfully and just lifting his head up and down in deep approval. Lee Bae Geok said nothing, though it was evident from the expression on his face that he was pleasantly surprised and quite impressed by the level of swordplay displayed by the two youths.

After Woon executed a graceful maneuver and knocked Dong Soo's sword to the ground, the tiny crowd dispersed. Or, more specifically, Lee Bae Geok left with his men to return to the caravan while Gwang Taek and Sa Mo returned into the house, leaving the two boys on their own.

They talked.

They talked for a long while, sharing stories and worries, apologies and promises. On multiple accounts, Dong Soo hinted at the possibility of Woon coming with him, and a spark of brilliance would enter his eyes. But each time, Woon carefully weaned him away from the subject and masterfully eased the topic into a different direction.

When a melancholy dinner held together by false cheer and jubilation passed, Woon and Dong Soo once again found themselves alone in the house, Sa Mo and Gwang Taek having gone off to perform a last check-up on the caravan.

Dong Soo was sitting on his straw bed, tossing a small ball at Sanai and watching her tackle the round object ferociously, when Woon suddenly held out something under Dong Soo's nose.

"You should have this." 

It was his mother's red cloth.

"Woon-ah..." the older boy breathed, a note of confusion entering his voice. His brows drew together as he made eye contact with the other boy. "This...why are you giving me this?" He reached up, but instead of accepting the offering, he let his fingers encircle Woon's wrist and bring it down slightly.

Woon seemed unaffected by Dong Soo's action or inquiries and instead, casually retracted his hand into his own lap, bringing one thumb down to stroke the cloth. 

"I was chasing this...when I found you," Woon finally started saying, eyes lost and thumb still idly running across the rich material. "I...I never knew my mother, and so like any other child missing his mother, a memento is a rare gift to have, to cherish." He paused with a light frown, ceasing the stroking and pulling away the folds to reveal the entirety of the keepsake, the words as clear as ever. "But this...these words that continue to haunt me, my mother's decision and sacrifice...sometimes I want to just burn this to ashes and never look at it again." His voice had stooped to a low shudder, and the guilt that plagued him following the admission was painfully apparent in his eyes.

He was clenching the cloth now, the creases shooting out from his fist a shade of crimson from the lighting in the room. 

"But you never did," Dong Soo reminded his friend firmly, a supportive hand on the latter's shoulder. _And that's what matters,_ he added privately, but had no doubt the other got the message. He must have, because tense shoulders dropped under Dong Soo's touch.

"But it was this that led me to you that day." Woon shot him a warm smile that rather took him by surprise, considering the other's gloomy disposition just a second earlier. And now...now if Dong Soo watched closely, he could see fondness in Woon's eyes, in the way his friend now glanced down at his mother's keepsake. "I had gotten it dirty and was about to wash it when the most unusual gust of wind swept through and snatched it out of my hands." His eyes were full of wonder at the memory. "I chased after it until it finally landed. And then I saw you."

And he smiled. The rare and beautiful smile that Dong Soo only had the privilege of seeing a handful of times. Something inside Dong Soo's chest made his heart clench, and he could faintly make out the sudden surge in the frantic thudding against his ribcage.

He was vaguely aware of the sensation of a cool cloth being pressed into his palms, the silky texture brushing against his calloused hands. His attention was the sole property of a pair of deep mesmerizing chocolate brown with so much honesty and feeling it _hurt_.

"Don't you see, Dong Soo-ya? This is the red string of Fate that's brought us together. My mother's will—mmph!"

Dong Soo kissed him.

It was a chaste kiss, a pure and innocent touch of lips that carried with it more feeling than any physical act of loving could have hoped to achieve.

His body had moved of its own accord, and to be honest, he had been just as surprised as—if not more than—Woon, whose body had gone rigid and eyes widened in shock. Nevertheless, he was the one to first regain his wits and pulled away slowly, speaking in a surprisingly calm and even tone. "Didn't I tell you that we create our own Fate?" He managed a weak but wry smile.

That seemed to be a cue for Woon to breathe again, as he had seemingly forgotten to do so during the past minute. He blinked owlishly and cutely, the latter description supplied helpfully by Dong Soo's errant mind.

When enough of Woon's mental senses managed to find their way back to his mind, they were accompanied by a rush of pink to the boy's cheeks. But aside from that physical evidence, there was little else to suggest that he had just had one of the most surprising experiences of his life. He recovered his thoughts slowly and patiently tried to form them into words. "That was—" He breathed in sharply, licking his own lips curiously with cheeks still a healthy shade of crimson.

"Just..." the older boy breathed in slowly, then held his breath. "It seemed like a good way to get you to shut up," he admitted sheepishly and half-truthfully. "I'm sorry if it—"

"It's...fine," Woon muttered. "It wasn't...it didn't feel...bad..." The last word was nearly dropped off, but it was still unmistakable.

"So it was good?" Dong Soo dished out the question like a reflex, and upon realizing what he'd asked, shrunk back and blushed as furiously as Woon had a moment prior.

"No!" Woon shouted out, mortified. A little embarrassed by his dramatic response, he cleared his throat and then started again. "It was...not bad," he repeated his previous statement stupidly. "But...shouldn't you do these things with girls?" He smiled weakly. "I'm sure Jin Joo would—"

"Oh please," Dong Soo interrupted with a groan, completely shedding his previous mood. "Don't even bring her up. If I kissed her, she'd probably eat my face off. Ew. I'd rather kiss you, thank you very much," he finished with a shudder.

And Woon's flush, which had receded before, came back full force. "You just did..." he murmured, still not able to bring himself to use the word 'kiss'.

"...I did, didn't I?" he conceded after a moment of pondering over the irony of his declaration. He chuckled half-heartedly. "Well... _I_ thought it was nice," he commented dryly before licking his lips and adding on thoughtfully, "and your lips taste like...apple. Wait, have you been stealing my candy?"

Woon shot him an exasperated look. "No. _You_ probably ate apple candy."

The other boy appeared to weigh his words carefully. Then within a split second, he scrubbed his mouth curiously with his sleeve, licked his lips again, and then landed another, more satisfying smack on Woon's lips. He pulled away a second later, eyes turned upwards and brows drawn together in a thoughtful manner, completely ignoring a confounded and unmoving Woon. He let his tongue glide over his lips from corner to corner, then retracted it to process judgment before splitting into a wide grin. "Nope! You taste like apple!" he announced cheerfully, as though he was simply commenting on the weather.

"You...You...to me...twice!" Woon let out, flabbergasted. 

"And you taste like apples. Mystery, no?" That earned him a glare. But with enough time—Dong Soo was good at waiting during times like these—Woon's glare softened.

It wasn't long before his features relaxed into a tender smile. "I think my eomeoni meant for me to meet you."

Dong Soo rolled his eyes. "Is everything in accordance to Fate with you?"

"Is everything you do truly in accordance to your own will?" Woon countered with disbelief. He glanced back down at the cloth. "This brought us together. I really believe that. This is what brought me to you. I want you to have it so that with luck, next time...it'll eventually bring you to me. Can you grant me that much?"

Dong Soo looked conflicted, but gradually yielded. "Fine. If it means that much to you, I'll bring it with me. But _I'm_ going to be the one trying to find a way for us to meet again, alright? And when we finally do and you go credit Fate again, I'm going to feel really really underappreciated, yeah?" He wrinkled his nose and pouted, causing Woon to laugh at his ridiculous expression.

The two of them joined together in laughter, and the sounds rang out across the backyard. Sanai, not wanting to miss out on the excitement, threw in her own barks and yelps, which only made the two boys double over even more in laughter.

And then they quieted.

"We _will_ see each other again...right?" Dong Soo asked, all traces of humor evaporated from his features, leaving a face wary of hope.

Woon met his gaze and then turned away, whispering a soft, "I hope so."

* * *

It was shortly after the breaking of dawn when the caravan was packed and ready for departure. There was a group of children gathered near the road, waiting for a final farewell for Dong Soo.

"Chon-ha, we're ready for departure," one of the men whispered discreetly into his ear. 

Dong Soo gave the man a curt nod. "Just give me a moment," he requested.

He walked over to his friends, grin spread wide across his face. "Hey you all," he greeted all of them. 

"Hey yourself," Chung Hee laughed.

And so they said their goodbyes. 

"Didn't we already go through this?" Dong Soo joked, waving idly at the tears and hugs and threats and all the while trying to alleviate the pang in his chest. He would not submit to the few tears that threatened to fall from his face.

Dae Ho only shrugged. "Well, none of us could let you go without seeing you off, of course."

"Dong Soo-ya! Dong Soo-ya!" screamed someone coming up into the crowd. It was Jin Joo, her face red and angry from the running she seemed to have done. Dong Soo backed away a little reflexively. "Dong Soo-ya..." she sniffed, "promise me you'll come back to visit, OK?" 

The boy could only nod nervously. After that, it was a rather festive farewell.

Amidst the exchanges and interactions, Dong Soo managed to catch Chung Hee's gaze. Out of the corner of his eye, he had seen Woon walking up, and his eyes briefly flickered over to the form of his best friend before flickering back to Chung Hee. The latter boy sent him a small nod and smiled.

Dong Soo sent his own smile in return, evidently relieved.

"Dong Soo-ya?" came the kind voice of his tutor. "It's time to leave." His eyes flew from Dong Soo to Woon.

Dong Soo nodded and shifted away from the crowd. He turned to face Sa Mo and couldn't help the grin that came from seeing the butcher's wet eyes and red nose. For the old man's sake though, Dong Soo decided to be nice and not to say anything for once. "Sa Mo—" His words were smothered by the large blubbering embrace that was Sa Mo.

"Y-yah inuma..." He paused and took a large sniff, blinking around rapidly to hide the tears. "You be good, alright? I know you're a—a good-for-nothing b-brat, but you be good and you take care of yourself and...and..." And he broke off sobbing loud ugly sobs. Jang Mi, who had appeared some moment ago, stroked his back sympathetically.

Dong Soo closed his eyes and breathed in slowly. The scent was horrid—the butcher was by no means a hygienic person—but it was a scent that Dong Soo would forever commit to memory, because it was a scent that Dong Soo would forever remember as 'home'. "I'll miss you too, Sa Mo, you old man. And next time I see you, you better have married ajumma." His words may have been smothered by Sa Mo's tunic, but it was obvious the butcher had heard them, from the way his ears pinked.

"Tch..." He suddenly released Dong Soo, who was now grinning. "Chincha...brat."

Jang Mi gave him a hug after that, her clothes smelling of herbs and medicine. Beside her, a shy looking Mi So watched him unhappily and asked him if he really was going to leave. Dong Soo withheld a scoff and said that he was. Then surprisingly enough, the girl burst into tears and latched onto his waist, screaming something about not allowing him to go. A feeling of dread crept through his body—this was way too similar to a goodbye with _another_ girl.

And finally it was Woon's turn.

Dong Soo stood there dumbly.

Finally, it was Woon who smiled and wrapped a pair of arms around Dong Soo's neck. "Remember, Baek Dong Soo will always be with me," he whispered into the shorter boy's ear. 

And all of a sudden, the realization that he was really _leaving_ , that he was actually leaving his best friend and venturing into a world virtually unknown to him became very real. "Woon-ah!" he gasped out and clung onto the other boy for dear life. "I—I don't—"

"Shh..." the younger boy soothed him until he was no longer gasping frantically for air. "The gods will let us meet again. I can feel it." He then pulled away from the other.

Dong Soo smiled weakly. "No gods. No fate. Instead, how about a promise?"

Woon smiled back. "Sure. A promise."

* * *

He watched from the back of the wagon, watched as the crowd of people waved him goodbye. He watched Jin Joo running after him halfway before being pulled back by Chung Hee. He watched Sa Mo hold his head up high, as though doing so would stop the tears from falling. He watched Sanai jump around and bark after him, wagging her tail happily then drooping down unhappily. He watched Jang Mi smile at him with two hands on Mi So's shoulders, the younger girl sniffing loudly. He watched as the people grew smaller and smaller and the distance between them grew larger and larger.

And he saw Woon staring after him.

A surge of tears welled up , and his heart constricted painfully, causing his throat to tighten as well.

The other boy gestured something—he stuck his hands into his own pocket and mimicked pulling something—

Dong Soo frantically patted his tunic and trousers. The moment he felt something solid, his fingers dove into the pocket containing it and pulled it out.

It was a candy, attached with a note.

He quickly unraveled the piece of rice paper.

' _I lied. I did steal your candy. Here's to make up for it._ _—Woon'_

He laughed. Staring incredulously at the piece of candy one palm and the piece of paper in the other, he couldn't stop the onslaught of laughter that left him breathless. Shaking his head, he tucked the candy and note back into his pocket and glanced back up to see Woon's expression.

They were gone.

The caravan was outside the village wall now, the wall that hid all the inhabitants.

They were gone. 

But so was the heavy feeling in his heart.

He pulled the candy and note out again. 

_Thank you, Woon-ah._

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Finished! And this concludes the first arc of Baek Dong Soo and Yeo Woon's story. The next arc would have focused on their time apart and their eventual reunification, but unfortunately I no longer have the time nor will to write it. I might consider writing some snippets/one-shots of their future selves, but even if I did have the hard intention to write this, I would not have time.
> 
> If anyone wants to consider picking this up, feel free to talk to me about it!
> 
> In the meantime, thank you to all of you who read this and I hope you enjoyed this. I'd love to know what you all thought, so reviews are love. Till next time!


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